Answer: Because altar boys don't get pregnant

Yesterday's mail brought a request from Planned Parenthood to help fight back against the Catholic bishops, who are throwing their weight around to encourage Catholic parishioners to agitate for more abortion restrictions in the health care bill.  This clearly is the episcopal issue of choice (oops) these days. No matter that what the law of the land is, or the opinion of compassionate people everywhere, they are totally against abortion (and worse yet, birth control) for women. 

Why, you ask?  See above.

More Engineer's Guide to Cats....

thankx to ronniecat for involuntarily sharing this....

Dear Diary....

November 2, 2009

Hard work today--successfully restrained myself from throwing my laptop through the window, and got the work done, too.

Plus, Squeak threw up blood!  He probably heard us talking about my niece, who rescued a stray dog from the street in Naples yesterday.  As she was driving around it, it raised its poor head and looked straight into her eyes.  Being a kind person, she stopped traffic, got out and wrapped the dog in her sweatshirt, and hauled him home.  There are no English-speaking vets in Naples, so she had to wait until this morning to take him into the vet on post.  Last night, though, she said he had a broken leg and was vomiting blood.  I imagine he is on the rainbow bridge, as my niece calls it, by now--if not on the other side already.  But maybe not. I remember Josh surviving a hit by a panel truck back in the 70s.  He managed to limp back to the shop and stand swaying in the back, where the overhead doors were wide open to the outside and fresh air. He had blood running from his nose and mouth. Mary, who was working in the back, said "There's something the matter with that dog!" Off to the vet with him, and the prognosis was grim.  But HE survived.

Meanwhile, Squeak is at the vet here now, and the vet is going to do some blood work. What? No xrays?  No MRIs? Probably a good case of parasites. Squeak loves to supplement his diet with whatever he can find on the sidewalk or in the tall grass. He's been vomiting regularly since last Friday, when they installed all new carpet!  I yelled at him today for barfing on the carpet again, and woddya know, he directed his next four throwups to the kitchen tile!

So it's dog vomit day in Naples and DC.

I am not a dog lover like some.  And it always amazes some dog lovers that their dogs come to sit by me or lie at my feet when I visit. I disapprove of the dogs lollygagging on the furniture and eating food off the kitchen counter. I disapprove of the dogs' lack of obedience and good doggy manners. But ha.  The dogs still like me--more, it seems, than they like others who are more tolerant.

It's the day George Bernard Shaw died, at the age of 94. I was in the 8th grade at St. Mary's in Fargo that day, and I had never heard of George Bernard Shaw. I always thought he was English, but ha!  he was IRISH.

Yup, that's what we need, all right...more WAR we can't pay for

One of my favorite columnists anywhere, Glenn Greenwald, wrote this yesterday in Salon.com. Here are some highlights:

Something very unusual happened on The Washington Post Editorial Page today: they deigned to address a response from one of their readers, who "challenged [them] to explain what he sees as a contradiction in [their] editorial positions": namely, the Post demands that Obama's health care plan not be paid for with borrowed money, yet the very same Post Editors vocally support escalation in Afghanistan without specifying how it should be paid for. "Why is it okay to finance wars with debt, asks our reader, but not to pay for health care that way?"

Greenwald confirms what lots of us are thinking:

We have absolutely no ability to pay for our Afghan adventure other than by expanding our ignominious status as the largest and most insatiable debtor nation which history has ever known. That debt gravely bothers Beltway elites like the Post editors when it comes to providing ordinary Americans with basic services (which Post editors already enjoy), but it's totally irrelevant to them when it comes to re-fueling the vicarious joys of endless war.

Yeah.  Read Greenwald's whole article. 

Martha Argerich plays Chopin, Polonaise N. 6 l'heroique

And younger still...

Martha Argerich plays Scarlatti, sonata K. 141

Here she is at a younger age.  What a marvel!

Martha Argerich performs Bach Partita No. 2 at Verbier festival

Martha Argerich is an incomparable Argentine pianist. She shuns the press and the limelight, but to see and hear her play is to be in the presence of music itself.

DC people won't stop to listen to purty music

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

Not let kidz listen, neither. (see previous post)

Perception....

Good old Darlene. She sent this today:

A true story.



Washington, DC Metro Station on a cold January morning in 2007. The man with a violin played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time approximately 2000 people went through the station, most of them on their way to work. After 3 minutes a middle aged man noticed there was a musician playing. He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds and then hurried to meet his schedule.


4 minutes later:


the violinist received his first dollar: a woman threw the money in the hat and, without stopping, continued to walk..


6 minutes:


A young man leaned against the wall to listen to him, then looked at his watch and started to walk again.


10 minutes:


A 3-year old boy stopped but his mother tugged him along hurriedly. The kid stopped to look at the violinist again, but the mother pushed hard and the child continued to walk, turning his head all the time. This action was repeated by several other children. Every parent, without exception, forced their children to move on quickly.


45 minutes:


The musician played continuously. Only 6 people stopped and listened for a short while. About 20 gave money but continued to walk at their normal pace. The man collected a total of $32.


1 hour:


He finished playing and silence took over. No one noticed. No one applauded, nor was there any recognition.

No one knew this, but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the greatest musicians in the world. He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written, with a violin worth $3.5 million dollars. Two days before Joshua Bell sold out a theater in Boston where the seats averaged $100.


This is a true story. Joshua Bell playing incognito in the metro station was organized by the Washington Post as part of a social experiment about perception, taste and people's priorities. The questions raised: in a common place environment at an inappropriate hour, do we perceive beauty? Do we stop to appreciate it? Do we recognize talent in an unexpected context?


One possible conclusion reached from this experiment could be this: If we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world, playing some of the finest music ever written, with one of the most beautiful instruments ever made.... How many other things are we missing?

[XE here] Every Saturday morning, two guys play outside the Gallery Place metro--one on violin, the other on some kind of electric guitar/keyboard thing (dunno what it is--never seen one before). Last Saturday, they were playing Vivaldi's "Four Seasons." Their playing was so beautiful, it stopped lots of people in their tracks, but even so, only a few people contributed. still, what a fabulous gift....

Some of the pickle bucket players are great, too--it costs me an average of $3 just to walk down the street here....NEED to win that lottery!


Mary Ellen Carew