I’m honestly tired of religion being the litmus test in this country to get nominated for political office. Religion should be the litmus test for becoming a religious leader. I personally would like my next president to be an agnostic or atheist so it won’t even be an issue. I mean, it’s not like having religion means that any of these leaders has morals or ethics. In fact, the more religious, it seems to me, the more egregiously repugnant their personal behavior is. So give me a good old fashioned agnostic who doesn’t claim to get his or her morals
There has to be a way to break the cycle
I wrote a column a few weeks ago about pseudo-families. State and federal rules require social workers to try to reunite these dysfunctional families when children have been removed from them despite the fact that healing something that never existed is darn near impossible. I had a very interesting e-mail response to that column that struck me as even more pertinent after reading about the sex trafficking trial currently happening in Anchorage.
The trial is about whether or not the accused was prostituting the girls who lived in his house, paying them in drugs and periodically beating or abusing them.
Am I the only one?
I want to see the pictures and performances nominated for awards this year. So I rented Eastern Promises. I spent a good deal of the movie with my hands over my eyes. No Country for Old Men seems to be at about the same level. As does Sweeny Todd. Seems like the only movie I won’t have to sit through with my hands over my eyes is Juno. Does this mean I’m too old to be relevant? Too old to appreciate great performances squeezed into bloodied scenes of extreme grossness? Am I the only one who wishes that filmmakers would
Thirty years and counting
I don’t remember the month, but thirty years ago this year my wonderful Captain came into my life. Who could have known then that the longest lasting relationship I’d ever have would be with an Amazon parrot. This is the 25th anniversary for me and my Bare-eyed Cockatoo CB. How lucky I am to have had them in my life.
It’s an Alaskan’s wet dream
The feds want to send us $600 each. The state wants to send us an extra $1000 on top of the $1600 PFD check we’ve already received. It’s an Alaskan’s wet dream come true. Free money raining out of the sky from the government. And all we have to do to earn it is just exist. It’s what the spirit of Alaska is all about, isn’t it?
Here’s how you know you are really, really old
Here’s how you know you are really, really old and it’s taking way too much medication to keep you alive. You go to your local pharmacy and the entire staff behind the counter calls out hi to you by name and has your latest drugs waiting by the time it’s your turn. Once I was known by name at the local hot spots. Now, the local pharmacy. Will aging leave me no dignity?
It figures
I give my birds the best food possible. I cut up fresh vegetables for them every day. I never leave them without the TV turned on to their favorite cartoon or music channel. Their cages get cleaned three times a week and the paper changed more often. I spend time with each of them to make sure they never feel unloved.
So why is it that I will be taking my African Grey Abdul to his annual checkup without a feather on his chest. and few left in his tail, looking like a pathetic, abused and ignored plucked duck? Even
No matter how hard I try
I really do believe that in this world we need to try and understand all perspectives so that we can live peacefully. And so I try to understand Islam. And then I hear a radio interview with a guy who says a family refused to let their daughter marry the man she loved because he only rented a house so he wasn’t good enough for her. Then, giggling, the guy went on to say that also the potential groom was too tall for the girl so their body parts wouldn’t meet properly. And I thought to myself, really? And that’s
The eagles have landed
America’s economic engine seems to run on marketers selling us stuff we don’t need based on advertising that convinces us we can’t live without it. But if I sometimes despair over the materialistic world that has swallowed America whole, a week spent in the company of volunteers who willingly held smelly slimed eagles that were very unhappy about getting a bath cures me of that despair. Because while marketing may drive our economic engine, its the volunteers in our communities that drive our hearts and souls.
Just about everyone by now knows the story of the eagles that thought there
Well, this is just plain embarrassing
I’m sitting in my office working away diligently on some project when I hear a strange sound from the other room. It sounds like a dog in distress. Not yelping distress. But bouncing around distress. I get up and go out in time to see my Blondie with her head caught in the space between the grate at the bottom of the bird cage and the tray below it where the droppings are. She was trying to squeeze in to get some chicken that had fallen from the bird’s breakfast and gotten her head caught and was now struggling through