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Roscoe isn't done yet. His kidneys are bad and he's got a bladder infection. Best I can hope for is months but he's surprised me before. Dogs his size don't usually live this long.

But I can't live without a dog. So Punkin is waiting in the wings, along and along I'll get out to meet him to be sure we're compatible(and that he doesn't have a morbid fear of wheelchairs)
and if all goes well, as soon as Roscoe is gone I'll begin training Punkin and barely miss a feeding.

The grief is going to be overwhelming. But everything is in place for when the time comes to deal with it.

“The pain I feel now is the happiness I had before. That's the deal.” C.S. Lewis

Lewis was talking about his wife, but dogs have the same kind of deal. You enjoy them while they are with us, which is not long for the kind of large dogs I like. My icon is actually one of them. We've had a lot of great dogs over the years, and our lives are richer for that.

As a Michigander watching this action, and as a father whose son was a chef at the restaurant a stones throw away from the bridge to be blown up in Elk Rapids MI, I was saddened, yet not surprised by the result of the Whitmer plot trial.
I’ve sat on the patio of that restaurant & watched boats come & go under that bridge flying Trump flags and blaring their version of Foxual facts. Those people will never go away…truly, I believe never.
In a society as politically divided as I have ever seen, I wonder how rare it will be to find a person or a group unanimously guilty of a crime with a political backstory. A jury, it seems, will always have participants more or less intentional seated to lean to one side or the other. Facts, and factual use of decision making, as been a casualty of the Trump era. Mandating jurors rely on facts alone seems damn near impossible.

Is you want to post a YouTube clip you can't use the URL, you have to use the share link from down below the video. Also the script has to be a straight shot, don't use the YouTube assist from UBB.

Today a 34 year old Trump appointed judge got rid of the federal mandate for wearing masks on public transportation. In my van, since I am in charge, we are wearing them until May 3rd.

Upon reflection, I'll put the mask wearing up to a vote.

F/A/O NW_P

I had two doc appointment in Lakewood today, and I had Rocksus still from the weekend, so I took him to Steilacoom dog park. They have a new bathroom facility. The last time I was at that dog park was pre-COVID and that corner was dirt parking.

The basic tool for understanding the difference between the two Left-Right extremes of Communism and Fascism are incredibly clear.
From the view of the projected rhetorical boilerplate of each extreme, on the Left, we see that Communists project belief in the classless society. enforced equality of outcome and abolition of private property to the max extent possible.
People exist to serve the state.

From the Right we get the opposite. Society is ALL ABOUT being carved up into classes, starting with the elite, both individuals and corporate entities, the latter of which enjoy special status as enhanced people due to their immortality and construction out of steel, glass, concrete, lawyers and a seemingly inexhaustible cache of money, which they use to stomp around demanding their "human rights" while pulverizing mere flesh and blood peons to a red grease spot in the process.
Religion, the fundamentalist kind, enjoys a role in helping enforce hierarchies and it also plays the role of casting the castes in the required light. The poor ARE poor due the fact that they are WICKED. Everyone knows that God smiles upon the wealthy who are so because they are pure and good, and obedient to their Master in Heaven and on Earth, who is chosen BY God, of course.
And mere people exist to serve the state.

Somewhere in between these two hot messes there used to be an America.
It's tough to actually HEAR that America due to their being drowned out.
Organized money means organized puppet shows and megaphones.
Somewhere in there is an America, a rational and deliberately mindful America that treasures democracy.
My fervent hope and prayer is that this America finds its voice again soon.

Jeffery Haas

Not real democracy like Athens had though...no, a very different sort of government called a constitutional republic where individuals don't get to vote on any issues but they elect(from a pre-selected list of names) a (usually rich and(or) powerful) individual to vote for them!

Democracy by proxy, as it were. But we treasure the illusion that we treasure democracy because they let us vote for some nimrod who's only in it for the money every two years.

And so, like Sparta, we are ruled by two kings. One wears a red crown and one wears blue.