Best Movie Musical EVER!!!

I saw it this past weekend.  I saw it the weekend before.  I'm pretty sure I could see it again this coming weekend.  Any takers?

(Hubby says once was plenty for him.)

Hopefully Karma is Not a Bitch

Here is a classic ethical dilemma come to life.  It is Sunday afternoon.  There are about eight people on the subway car when a woman about 30 years old boards.  She excuses herself and asks for everyones' attention.  She then tells a story of how she fell asleep at the bus station and had all her money, credit cards, bus ticket, and insulin pens stolen.  She stayed outside all night with nothing to eat or drink, she was scared.  She says she called Travelers Aid and it would take three to seven business days to get her some help. What's more her dog is alone in her apartment and she has to be at work at 7 a.m. on Monday at a job she just started two weeks ago.  She says a bus ticket is 11.99 and asks if anyone would be willing to give her one dollar toward bus fare home.

At the next stop a few more people get on and she repeats her story.  This time she adds the detail that she is pregnant.  Maybe she should have led with that. 

If a panhandler on the street asks for money, it is easy to look away and ignore.  In a subway car with only a dozen or so other people it's a tad more difficult.

Probably just another panhandler, albeit with a more detailed story.  There are holes in the story; if she is an insulin dependent diabetic she would be in a coma if she hadn't had anything to eat or drink and such.  

So there is a 99% chance she's a hustler.  But what about the other 1%?  What if what she says happened did happen?  What if someone on the train who could give her $12 and not miss it? If she takes the money to buy drugs or booze, that's her choice.  The giver chooses to do a good thing.  The receiver chooses to do a bad thing.  The receiver's choice shouldn't dictate the giver's, should it?  Won't karma be favorable to the giver regardless?

OK, you can probably tell by the title of this post what choice I made.  But I thought about it for a long time and I feel bad.  I like to think I am a better person than I demonstrated and this is an open apology to that woman.  Next time I think I'll take a chance on the 1%.

Congrats, Hubby

Here is a pic of Hubby receiving his service award for 30 years at the VA.  Congratulations!!!

And Happy Birthday Char-Gar on turning 5.

Instructions for Visiting the Miyajima Monkeys

And because I wish this blog to be educational, if you happen to visit the monkeys in Miyajima, Japan, please follow these simple instructions:

My New Hero

For anyone who would argue that McCain is the NOT same as Bush, i.e. McSame (and I don't think anyone I know would actually argue that point),  I offer you Exhibit A: Carol Kreck (pictured above).  Kreck is a 60-year-old librarian who had the audacity to carry a hand-made sign reading "MCCAIN = BUSH" at a McCain campaign event in Denver.

Guess what happened.  Venue security, acting on a  request from McCain's staff (or the Secret Service, depending on who is telling the story), had this dangerous subversive removed from the Town Meeting and charged with trespassing.   Does this sound disturbingly familiar?  It should. We have already had nearly 8 years of  not-so-free speech under Bushwhack.  We don't need it for however many more years if McSame becomes president.

And in case anyone needs more evidence, this old familiar picture speaks for itself:

R.I.P. Cat

Sadly we had to have our cat, Cat, put down last night.  As close as we can figure she was about 18 years old and she had breast cancer.  It was the right decision at the right time but still sad.  She was a good cat.

Today's Spinning in His Grave Person of the Day: Thomas Jefferson

When I posted yesterday I had no idea that Bushwhack was speaking yesterday at Monticello, Jefferson's home.  Good old Tom must have done some massive grave spinning yesterday.

It was heartening to see that Bush actually had to witness the fact that people actually disagree with him.  It's a sign of how much 'political capital' he has squandered that he can no longer be assured that his advance team can drag up enough true believers to fill an audience or that they can keep protesters out of sight and out of earshot.  In addition to the Code Pink contingent at the event there were actually protesters on the motorcade route and not corralled as usual in a 'free speech' cage where they cannot be seen or heard by Bushie.

There's been some debate as to whether the swearing in of new citizens was an appropriate venue for protest.  I'm not commenting on the appropriateness of the venue of protest but it is telling that Bush's response, less than a minute into his speech, about how we believe in free speech in America, was at best disingenuous and at worst, a flat out lie. 'We' might believe in free speech; it may be enshrined in our Constitution but since when has the Constitution been anything to Bush other than a minor inconvenience that can be ignored when it gets in the way of his imperial presidency?

January 20, 2009 cannot come soon enough.

July 4 Thoughts

In 1821, in a letter to John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, reflecting on contemporaneous events in Europe wrote: 

I shall not die without a hope that light and liberty are on steady advance...And even should the cloud of barbarism and despotism again obscure the science and liberties of Europe, this country remains to preserve and restore light and liberty to them. In short, the flames kindled on the 4^th of July, 1776, have spread over too much of the globe to be extinguished by the feeble engines of despotism; on the contrary, they will consume these engines and all who work them.

 

Much to Jefferson's great sorrow, were he to know, in the past 7 1/2 years the cloud of despotism has obscured the science and liberty not of Europe, but of Jefferson's own beloved and hard-fought-for United States. 

 

With the upcoming election. let's seek to rekindle the flames of freedom so that the engines of despotism that have recently been rebuilt in this country will indeed prove feeble and be consumed by the renewed and rekindled flames of liberty and light.