Phaedra took a turn for the worst and died about 8:30 this morning in my arms. There are no words.
And to make it even worse, we have sadly made the decision to send Tully across the Rainbow Bridge tomorrow. She most likely has FIP and has passed from the dry type to the wet. She is beginning to suffer and it is time to let go.
I grieve.
Tuesday, October 29, 2019
Saturday, October 26, 2019
And she is eating!
Phaedra is about 8 weeks old. She wasn't interested in food earlier today so the vet gave her a supplement. Her eyes are very irritated, so after washing them, she still can barely see. Neverthless, we just washed her face, I offered her kitten formula. Five syringes later, she is full and has fallen asleep. Looks like she is going to be fine.
On a sadder note, I have a furchild with FIP. I strongly suspect she will be crossing the rainbow bridge soon. Tully is only two, so it is heart breaking.
I am a humble servant of the Lady Bastet
Phaedra is the newest member of the household. She threw our home into quite the tizzy this morning. But let me start at the beginning...
I meant to drop some money off to a friend last night night. I have been making payments on my Honda for years. Things have improved lately, and I wanted to make an extra payment. So I took the payment to my friend's home this morning on the way to work. A FedEx truck was blocking the road a couple of houses before my friend's home. It took a minute for my tired brain to register the site of a tiny kitten in the road. I watched as the driver got out and moved her to the side of the road. We have over 20 rescues and don't need another. Sigh. I resolved to check on her in five minutes when I left the neighborhood.
I dropped off the envelope and turned the car around. The result is obvious. Two neighbors from two different houses had appeared and were staring at the alien ball of fur. I debated. They were not approaching it....let alone picking it up.
So I stopped. "We don't know what to do with it."
I responded with take it to a vet. Blank stares. I tried again. "Tractor supply has cheap antibiotics. The eyes need Neosporin." They stare at me like I have three heads. Deep sigh. "I'll take her". My partner's gonna kill me. We agreed. No more cats.
I scooped her up. She was fine till we got to the car. Then I got the first bite. I didn't let go. I got her in a box with two more bites. I folded the lid. Took her home. Woke Cameron. "I've been very naughty....her name is Phaedra."
Thursday, September 12, 2019
Blowing off the dust
It's been the better part of three years....a long three years of Trumpian dystopia. Never thought sci-fi would become real life. After the election, I wrote daily then just a few times a week, then none. It was too debilitating to keep up the writing. News happened too fast and became too outrageous. I began watching MSNBC every night, aghast at what has befallen my country.
The first three months after the election I found myself randomly crying. I drank almost daily. Then my doctor had a talk with me about blood sugar and cholesterol and I stopped. Sober was harder, but so be it.
So for three years I have read. Watched. Worked in my therapy room to help clients who likewise struggled with the crazy around us. We still shake our heads, wonder if one day those of us that are gay, trans, Hispanic might find ourselves rounded up.
Tonight I deleted 60 blog posts written after the election. I felt so bitter, so shocked, so angry that those posts were the way I found to survive the crazy. Today I feel less desperate, but just as certain of disaster. All of the damage done cannot be healed in my lifetime. Nevertheless, I have put one foot in front of the other and will continue to do.
So I am going back to writing, now and again, about all things in my heart. I am not going to research and write the kind of posts I did before the election, but I will return to thoughts, struggles, and insights. I miss writing. Indeed, I resent the political climate that so overwhelmed me that it silenced my voice.
The first three months after the election I found myself randomly crying. I drank almost daily. Then my doctor had a talk with me about blood sugar and cholesterol and I stopped. Sober was harder, but so be it.
So for three years I have read. Watched. Worked in my therapy room to help clients who likewise struggled with the crazy around us. We still shake our heads, wonder if one day those of us that are gay, trans, Hispanic might find ourselves rounded up.
Tonight I deleted 60 blog posts written after the election. I felt so bitter, so shocked, so angry that those posts were the way I found to survive the crazy. Today I feel less desperate, but just as certain of disaster. All of the damage done cannot be healed in my lifetime. Nevertheless, I have put one foot in front of the other and will continue to do.
So I am going back to writing, now and again, about all things in my heart. I am not going to research and write the kind of posts I did before the election, but I will return to thoughts, struggles, and insights. I miss writing. Indeed, I resent the political climate that so overwhelmed me that it silenced my voice.
Sunday, December 4, 2016
Heartland Pt 5
I continue working through 'What's the Matter with Kansas" and have arrived a the midpoint of the book, which points out that, unlike the confederate flag waving south, "the backlash in full cry without the familiar formula of racial conflict to serve s an interpretative guide". Indeed, the author argues that in Kansas "right-wing partisanship is an equal-opportunity affair, with a ready-made complaint for every demographic and a grievance for every occasion." This has a new relevance, folks, as Sam Brownback is under consideration for Trump's cabinet. He is named in the book.
In Kansas, the conservatives have appropriated language of prejudice and applied to their moderate foes, accusing them of bigotry and disliking evangelicals in the same "way that actual bigots dislike minorities". Some conservatives like Sam Brownback go much further. He's befriended the African-American caucus by constructing a museum and the Latino's with an open boarder policy. But when he sought election in 1996 against Democrat Jill Docking of Wichita, he didn't hesitate to flood the state with TV commercials reminding voters of her maiden name Sadowsky. And then there were the mysterious phone calls the week before the election reminding voters that "Docking is a Jew."
Remember that the stereotype of a Jew is "affluent, alien, cosmopolitan, liberal, and above all, intellectual." In other words, we have become a country defied by elite's vs the plain people. And the elites, according to Rush Limbauh, include "the medical elites, the sociology elites, the education elites, the legal elties, the science elites...and the ideas thus bunch promotes through the media." This election wasn't won on policy, it was won on class warfare when a billionaire harnessed this elites
resentment.
FDR turned college professors loose on the economic structure of the nation. It was these intellectuals who designed the New Deal plan, giving the country social security. So when the Republicans "privatize" Medicare and gut social security, realize the resentment of that care for the country, which is known to be highly successful, will be torn down because of grassroots anger born on the wind of resentment of "the elites."
A second anti-intellectual efflorescence came from the 50s, according to the book, in the form of Joe McCarthy when they unearthed a leftist conspiracy born in the highest-ranking families who were educated in the finest institutions. It was believed that the intellectuals betrayed capitalism; with repetition, it became common sense.
Presently, anti-intellectualism is associated with "any deviation from a system of values that they alternately identify with God and the earth-people of Red America." By rallying against intellectuals, the author observes, they reject critical thinking and church hierarchy. It embraces charismatic preachers over any form of learned organization. Now if you are Republican doctor, professor or therapist, you align with the lower class by railing and grumbling about interfering professionals: "In every social issue Republicans perceive the same pattern: a conflict of authentic and natural and the democratic with arrogan and the meddling and the foolish." In every effort at reform, conservatives scream "interference!" And this is the overarching concern that Roe v Wade propagated. It was a top down change, and now gay marriage, that changed laws in most states in the union. It was imposed by the over-educated elites. In conservative's minds, the elites define life and marriage, disdaining conservative opinion. rs54=
In Kansas, the conservatives have appropriated language of prejudice and applied to their moderate foes, accusing them of bigotry and disliking evangelicals in the same "way that actual bigots dislike minorities". Some conservatives like Sam Brownback go much further. He's befriended the African-American caucus by constructing a museum and the Latino's with an open boarder policy. But when he sought election in 1996 against Democrat Jill Docking of Wichita, he didn't hesitate to flood the state with TV commercials reminding voters of her maiden name Sadowsky. And then there were the mysterious phone calls the week before the election reminding voters that "Docking is a Jew."
Remember that the stereotype of a Jew is "affluent, alien, cosmopolitan, liberal, and above all, intellectual." In other words, we have become a country defied by elite's vs the plain people. And the elites, according to Rush Limbauh, include "the medical elites, the sociology elites, the education elites, the legal elties, the science elites...and the ideas thus bunch promotes through the media." This election wasn't won on policy, it was won on class warfare when a billionaire harnessed this elites
resentment.
FDR turned college professors loose on the economic structure of the nation. It was these intellectuals who designed the New Deal plan, giving the country social security. So when the Republicans "privatize" Medicare and gut social security, realize the resentment of that care for the country, which is known to be highly successful, will be torn down because of grassroots anger born on the wind of resentment of "the elites."
A second anti-intellectual efflorescence came from the 50s, according to the book, in the form of Joe McCarthy when they unearthed a leftist conspiracy born in the highest-ranking families who were educated in the finest institutions. It was believed that the intellectuals betrayed capitalism; with repetition, it became common sense.
Presently, anti-intellectualism is associated with "any deviation from a system of values that they alternately identify with God and the earth-people of Red America." By rallying against intellectuals, the author observes, they reject critical thinking and church hierarchy. It embraces charismatic preachers over any form of learned organization. Now if you are Republican doctor, professor or therapist, you align with the lower class by railing and grumbling about interfering professionals: "In every social issue Republicans perceive the same pattern: a conflict of authentic and natural and the democratic with arrogan and the meddling and the foolish." In every effort at reform, conservatives scream "interference!" And this is the overarching concern that Roe v Wade propagated. It was a top down change, and now gay marriage, that changed laws in most states in the union. It was imposed by the over-educated elites. In conservative's minds, the elites define life and marriage, disdaining conservative opinion. rs54=
Saturday, November 19, 2016
From What's the Matter with Kansas: Heartland Pt 4
The next section of the book looks at the formation of the Republican control in Kansas. This quote might be one the most meaningful in the entire book:
The author also takes a look at Kansas City media figure Jack Cashill who is a class warrior. On the one hand he criticizes privilege, while with the other hand he fawns over the region's business leaders. His skill lies in the ability to "make sense of the average person's disgruntlement while exempting laisssez-faire capitalism from any culpability." Mutual outrage against a common enemy like liberals allows disparate members of the community to be united.
Significantly, Cashill argued that by 1994, after two years of Democrat leadership in Washington, the Midwest "were said to be living under an imposed federal regime that we were unable to question and powerless to control. Like the vanquished Confederacy under reconstruction, we were a conquered people." So all that assistance with federal jobs (and benefits), help with schools, aid to the housing authority and prosecution of a corrupt governor were turned into being called control!
Tim Golba works on the line at the Pepsi bottling company, making it his life's mission to help increase the power of Kansas' conservative moment through Kansans for Life during the 80s and 90s. He recruited hard-line abortion conservatives. For him, it's all about principals: "They're all these business people, they have a ton of money, some of the wealthiest people in the country, but we've been able to beat them because they have no base." He believes Kansans don't vote for economic issues such as taxes or the economy. They vote to strike a blow for the cultural war. The same can be said for Trump's presidency. He has only a vague understanding of foreign policy, how to build a cabinet, how to fund infrastructure, or how to make taxes fair. But voters saw voting for him as a blow in the cultural war, despite his millions.
Then there's Kay O'Connor who argued women's suffrage was a symptom of America's moral decline. She thinks government unions, especially teacher's unions, cause problems. She thinks tax cuts and free enterprise is going to fix most everything. She opposes progressive taxes, which she thinks is theft but is not wealthy herself. Her solution to urban decline is school vouchers and the low-wage economy. Market forces will fix it all. (OMG -- really????!!!!) In her world, everyone has a place and should be happy in their station. She undermines women, declaring she is obedient to my husband in all things moral". Despite this conservative Christian stance, she runs her campaign, is authoritative and is every bit an equal despite her determination to restore some sort of mythic social order of the past.
Mark Gietzen, director of a Wichita Christian singles network, served as chairman of the local Republican party in the 90s. The Summer of Mercy changed the party forever, according to him. Thousands of conservative recruits campaigned door to door, for the first time, building a social movement that "shouted their fighting creed to every resident of the city, sharpening the differences, polarizing the electorate, letting everyone know the stakes." Meanwhile, the rival movement that traditionally spoke for the working class became Clinton's New Democrats. While the intent had been to accommodate the right with an emphasis on free market. Instead, they looked "dispirited, weak, spent." By removing basic economic issues from the table, only social issues were left to distinguish the parties. Soon pamphlets like Is It a Sin for a Christian to Be a Registered Democrat Voter in America Today? began circulating. And you wonder why Hillary Clinton couldn't win the heartland? Think about it. The Democratic party is about to make the same mistake again. Today I heard the man trying to be the new party chair arguing all the things we have in common like infrastructure and we need to work together. The Democratic party has forgotten what should have been learning from Bill Clinton's New Democratics. This talk from a one down position is going to look dispirited, weak and spent. And they will run right over us, building the wall, setting up Muslim interment camps, and putting more gilding in Trump Tower.
Ultimately, as a result of the Democratic representative at the time voting for NAFTA which was originally proposed by republicans, republicans began separating themselves from Democrats by issues of abortions and guns. The next election was won by a Republican. "The inversion was complete: the Democrat could only count on support from the professional people who felt embarrassed by the Summer of Mercy and its aftermath." The polarization of the Heartland from the coasts was complete.
Out here, remember, the gravity of discontent pulls to the right, to the right, farther to the right. The standard reaction of Kansas to the vulgar machinations of the state's self-perpetuating ruling class, to its cronyism and its brazen flaunting of its wealth, to its business scandals and the grinding destruction of farm communities, is to push ever deeper into the alienated right wing world of the culture wars.So the way to cope with the unfairness of the universe, is to assert your righteousness and victimhood. Fox News feeds your knowledge that you are "unfairly and outrageously persecuted." It becomes identity. They become the victims of "unspeakable persecution by the ruling class, that is, liberals." By taking on the role of victim, conservatives are absolved of responsibility for their failures and justifies their rage and hatred for "depraved liberal elite". Worse, there are even those like Dwight Sutherland Jr from Kansas City, who argue splinter issues like abortion, gun control and evolution is Democratic strategy to keep conservatives in check. (I'm really not sure what the man is smokin'.)
The author also takes a look at Kansas City media figure Jack Cashill who is a class warrior. On the one hand he criticizes privilege, while with the other hand he fawns over the region's business leaders. His skill lies in the ability to "make sense of the average person's disgruntlement while exempting laisssez-faire capitalism from any culpability." Mutual outrage against a common enemy like liberals allows disparate members of the community to be united.
Significantly, Cashill argued that by 1994, after two years of Democrat leadership in Washington, the Midwest "were said to be living under an imposed federal regime that we were unable to question and powerless to control. Like the vanquished Confederacy under reconstruction, we were a conquered people." So all that assistance with federal jobs (and benefits), help with schools, aid to the housing authority and prosecution of a corrupt governor were turned into being called control!
Tim Golba works on the line at the Pepsi bottling company, making it his life's mission to help increase the power of Kansas' conservative moment through Kansans for Life during the 80s and 90s. He recruited hard-line abortion conservatives. For him, it's all about principals: "They're all these business people, they have a ton of money, some of the wealthiest people in the country, but we've been able to beat them because they have no base." He believes Kansans don't vote for economic issues such as taxes or the economy. They vote to strike a blow for the cultural war. The same can be said for Trump's presidency. He has only a vague understanding of foreign policy, how to build a cabinet, how to fund infrastructure, or how to make taxes fair. But voters saw voting for him as a blow in the cultural war, despite his millions.
Then there's Kay O'Connor who argued women's suffrage was a symptom of America's moral decline. She thinks government unions, especially teacher's unions, cause problems. She thinks tax cuts and free enterprise is going to fix most everything. She opposes progressive taxes, which she thinks is theft but is not wealthy herself. Her solution to urban decline is school vouchers and the low-wage economy. Market forces will fix it all. (OMG -- really????!!!!) In her world, everyone has a place and should be happy in their station. She undermines women, declaring she is obedient to my husband in all things moral". Despite this conservative Christian stance, she runs her campaign, is authoritative and is every bit an equal despite her determination to restore some sort of mythic social order of the past.
Mark Gietzen, director of a Wichita Christian singles network, served as chairman of the local Republican party in the 90s. The Summer of Mercy changed the party forever, according to him. Thousands of conservative recruits campaigned door to door, for the first time, building a social movement that "shouted their fighting creed to every resident of the city, sharpening the differences, polarizing the electorate, letting everyone know the stakes." Meanwhile, the rival movement that traditionally spoke for the working class became Clinton's New Democrats. While the intent had been to accommodate the right with an emphasis on free market. Instead, they looked "dispirited, weak, spent." By removing basic economic issues from the table, only social issues were left to distinguish the parties. Soon pamphlets like Is It a Sin for a Christian to Be a Registered Democrat Voter in America Today? began circulating. And you wonder why Hillary Clinton couldn't win the heartland? Think about it. The Democratic party is about to make the same mistake again. Today I heard the man trying to be the new party chair arguing all the things we have in common like infrastructure and we need to work together. The Democratic party has forgotten what should have been learning from Bill Clinton's New Democratics. This talk from a one down position is going to look dispirited, weak and spent. And they will run right over us, building the wall, setting up Muslim interment camps, and putting more gilding in Trump Tower.
Ultimately, as a result of the Democratic representative at the time voting for NAFTA which was originally proposed by republicans, republicans began separating themselves from Democrats by issues of abortions and guns. The next election was won by a Republican. "The inversion was complete: the Democrat could only count on support from the professional people who felt embarrassed by the Summer of Mercy and its aftermath." The polarization of the Heartland from the coasts was complete.
Side trip: Denny's, somewhere in the Deep South
Somewhere in the deep south last night, a conversation took place. On one side of the table sat a white, 50-something high school graduate who draws like Donatello, loves comic books, and works at a textile mill on the second shift (previously introduced as True Heart).
On the another side of the table sat my beloved Transgender priest Cameron, the mural artist, past Presbyterian now Episcopalian, was a factory worker currently (for the last 13 years if you don't count sporadic art commissions), late in life post-graduate school educated partner.
On a third side sat me, the youngest 50 something, over educated, under payed therapist. A couple of tables away sat the usual Trump voters, staring at us suspiciously, guy smaller than the physically born guy at my table. You know the type. The "I want to punch you in the nose" person with his date. Yes, he listened to the entire conversation. No, it isn't coincidence that several times True Heart turned to stare him down or to remind the guy that he's much bigger.
The wake of the election has rolled over our friends. While main stream America resumes their normal lives, we live on MSNBC and CNN, with occasional forays to enemy camps like The Hannity Show (radio) or Fox News to see what the other side is thinking. But even those closest to us are watching 60 Minutes as if the president-elect speaks truth and preaching "lets all get along". Meanwhile, Trump spent the week appointing a cabinet which promises to be racist, terrifying prowar, and more interested in lining his own pockets than serving the people. So when True Heart facebooked a reminder of when he gets off work and where to find him, we went.
True Heart is not part of the elite. His parents are comfortably middle class, but after a divorce and five years of unemployment (ever wonder what happened when textile mills closed in the south - the great untold story) he lives with a friend, lives paycheck to paycheck, and works long hours in a textile mill. Wages in textile mills were never what they were with Labor Unions up north. Now they are even worse than they used to be. But after five years of unemployment, when this company found out the hard way that their oversees saving program had to come home when they couldn't find people with experience to do the job...unlike most folks in ended industries....True Heart went back to work. He'd spent most of the night on his knees and belly crawling around in machine oil, and since he wanted to give us a hug, found a throw away vest to keep it off of us.
So we dissected the election, the fear, the ominous warning signs. We talked about George Takei who has been teaching classes for years about the Japanese interment camps but has suddenly been invited on to Fox MSNBC and interviewed by the NYTimes and Washington Post and tells us:
We talked about risk, our friends making plans to leave the country. I can't leave, I said. Too many cats. I'm too old. All excuses. Truth is, my job is here. Cameron agreed, and did True Heart. Despite our awareness of danger, we stay. But we aren't putting our heads back in the sand. We won't ever go back to "normal" while this man is president. Or Pence is VP.
And I wonder. How many more conversations are out there? Plans being laid to hide friends who are at risk of deportation. Finding ways to support civil rights? Americans' wait and see attitude got us here...and I fear where it will take us.
On the another side of the table sat my beloved Transgender priest Cameron, the mural artist, past Presbyterian now Episcopalian, was a factory worker currently (for the last 13 years if you don't count sporadic art commissions), late in life post-graduate school educated partner.
On a third side sat me, the youngest 50 something, over educated, under payed therapist. A couple of tables away sat the usual Trump voters, staring at us suspiciously, guy smaller than the physically born guy at my table. You know the type. The "I want to punch you in the nose" person with his date. Yes, he listened to the entire conversation. No, it isn't coincidence that several times True Heart turned to stare him down or to remind the guy that he's much bigger.
The wake of the election has rolled over our friends. While main stream America resumes their normal lives, we live on MSNBC and CNN, with occasional forays to enemy camps like The Hannity Show (radio) or Fox News to see what the other side is thinking. But even those closest to us are watching 60 Minutes as if the president-elect speaks truth and preaching "lets all get along". Meanwhile, Trump spent the week appointing a cabinet which promises to be racist, terrifying prowar, and more interested in lining his own pockets than serving the people. So when True Heart facebooked a reminder of when he gets off work and where to find him, we went.
True Heart is not part of the elite. His parents are comfortably middle class, but after a divorce and five years of unemployment (ever wonder what happened when textile mills closed in the south - the great untold story) he lives with a friend, lives paycheck to paycheck, and works long hours in a textile mill. Wages in textile mills were never what they were with Labor Unions up north. Now they are even worse than they used to be. But after five years of unemployment, when this company found out the hard way that their oversees saving program had to come home when they couldn't find people with experience to do the job...unlike most folks in ended industries....True Heart went back to work. He'd spent most of the night on his knees and belly crawling around in machine oil, and since he wanted to give us a hug, found a throw away vest to keep it off of us.
So we dissected the election, the fear, the ominous warning signs. We talked about George Takei who has been teaching classes for years about the Japanese interment camps but has suddenly been invited on to Fox MSNBC and interviewed by the NYTimes and Washington Post and tells us:
"Stop and consider these words. The internment was a dark chapter of American history, in which 120,000 people, including me and my family, lost our homes, our livelihoods, and our freedoms because we happened to look like the people who bombed Pearl Harbor. Higbie speaks of the internment in the abstract, as a “precedent” or a policy, ignoring the true human tragedy that occurred."It was our friend, Misbehavin' who, before her death, created the logo for George "It's OK to be Takai" in the Star Trek communicator shape and rainbow colors on t-shirts. There were only a few exactly like that because of copy write laws, before they marketed similar but less illegal versions. I have the original. I have to wonder what she would say now. I promise it would have been loud and in your face.
We talked about risk, our friends making plans to leave the country. I can't leave, I said. Too many cats. I'm too old. All excuses. Truth is, my job is here. Cameron agreed, and did True Heart. Despite our awareness of danger, we stay. But we aren't putting our heads back in the sand. We won't ever go back to "normal" while this man is president. Or Pence is VP.
And I wonder. How many more conversations are out there? Plans being laid to hide friends who are at risk of deportation. Finding ways to support civil rights? Americans' wait and see attitude got us here...and I fear where it will take us.
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