In a split second

A police officer in NY had to decide within a split second whether he should shoot an armed man holding a young woman hostage. At first the perp had the gun to her head and was saying he was going to kill her.  Then he raised the gun and pointed it at the officer.  According to reports there was very little time to talk and de-escalate and this kind of thing is the toughest call any law enforcement officer has to make.  Eight rounds were fired.  Seven hit the perp and one hit the girl.  My heart aches for this young lady’s family and for the officer.  The officer is on sick leave and I’m sure he is probably suffering the immense psychological pain that comes with this kind of incident.  He will have to carry the burden of this unintentional victim for the rest of his days.  This is one of the many reasons why more police officers die by committing suicide than are killed by felons every year.  We ask these men and women to carry an incredibly heavy responsibility and burden when we ask them to carry deadly weapons in their community’s defense.

This officer had served 8 years in the New York Police Department and 12 years in Nassau County (basically this is Long Island and much more suburban than the various NYC Burroughs) .  7 out of 8 bullets hit their target—that’s an accuracy level far, far above the average police officer’s accuracy in these kinds of situations where, if they’re really, really good, only about 50% of the bullets fired will actually strike the target.  Some studies show average hit rates as low as 20% at a distance of 7 feet.  Do YOU like those odds, if it was you or a loved one being held hostage?   This low hit percentage is precisely why the policy for such situations is to “talk and de-escalate”.  Talking and not automatically firing reduces the odds that anyone will be killed or injured.  Thousands upon thousands of stand-offs get resolved peacefully without any shots fired.  We only hear about the ones where it doesn’t work, but the reality is that it usually works.  I’m NOT saying the officer in this situation did the wrong thing or that he was a bad shot.  Far from it.  He did a damn good job to hit the guy as much as he did!  And I would never question his judgement call.  I wasn’t there.  His department will take care of that investigation ¹.

The point is that this news story, and the thousands just like it over many decades, demonstrate that even with good training and experience, the innocent still can and do get hurt.  The average gun toting American has never taken a single shooting course.  They may go to the range and they may do a lot of hunting, but at no point do the paper targets or the deer shoot back or threaten the lives of others.  The average American hasn’t had extensive and repetitive crisis response training.  They don’t get periodically certified based on their consistency and accuracy with a particular weapon.  Nor have they had all the other LEO training that teaches an officer on how to handle violent and potentially violent situations both with and without a weapon–so they have fewer tools with which to handle a crisis situation and are more likely to draw than a trained officer would be.  They won’t have had the first aid training of a LEO.  They simply will not have the same skillset as a LEO would have to make such a judgement call.  The average American watches Tombstone and plays Call of Duty on an Xbox and they think they’re ready to protect their fellow citizens ².   So to all the wannabe gun toting heroes running around who think IF they had been there they would have taken out the perp John Wayne-style and all the innocent people would have been saved–I call BS, yet again.

On a related note, yesterday we lost not one but two City of Phoenix public servants in the line of duty–a police officer and a firefighter.    They were both very young and both killed by motor vehicles.  The firefighter was crushed between two emergency vehicles–that’s right, crushed by trained emergency vehicle drivers.  The officer was performing a DUI stop on a surface road when he was struck by a passing vehicle, an incredibly sad but common occurrence in the U.S.  If you wish to offer your condolences and/or donate to help their families (BTW, they make diddly squat in pay compared to what they could have made in private industry) here is a link.

Motor vehicles are deadly weapons even when they are operated correctly.  You can drive absolutely perfectly and still get hit and killed by a bad driver.  But let’s face it we need cars to get around ³ and the car culture isn’t going away any time soon ⁴. But we also recognize that they’re dangerous necessities and as a result we require licensing, insurance and some kind of skills test to get or renew that license.  Yet we don’t have such a thing for guns.

Many will counter that guns are a right and driving is a privilege.  Unfortunately for them, that argument doesn’t fly.  Guns are a right but they are a dangerous right.  We should control them for the sake of safety like we control not only privileges like driving but also other rights such as Free Speech, Freedom of Religion, Freedom of the Press, Property Ownership, etc.  None of these other rights and privileges are absolute.  You can legally own land but you can’t do anything you want to it.  You can’t by a lot in Suburbia and then decide to put a mini-landfill on it.  You can’t shout “fire” in a crowded theater.  You can’t ⁵ advocate for a particular candidate from the pulpit and keep your non-taxable status.  You can’t ⁶ reveal the identities of the U.S. undercover agents in the Press and not get prosecuted for it.   There are limits to all of them.  The 2nd Amendment is the ONLY right that conservatives insist should be absolutely unregulated in spite of the fact that the law itself demands that it be “well regulated”.  Yet, we do regulate every other deadly thing in our society.

Gun control isn’t unconstitutional.  Endangering your fellow citizens should be.  Let’s put some common sense controls in place.

Notes:

1. Every police department in the country requires an investigation when shots are fired by an officer regardless of whether there are any actual shooting victims or not.   In fact in some departments if an officer even unholsters their  weapon, they are REQUIRED to submit a “user of force” report.  In other departments, the report is only required if the weapon is drawn and pointed at a target.  These policies differ depending on location.  In somewhere like LA, they have to draw their weapon all the time and submitting a UOF report for every time would grind the department to a halt.  But in suburban areas, drawing a weapon is the exception, not the rule.  Regardless, if the officer uses force, he is then expected to prove that the use of force was required in that situation.  In the case of a shooting, the officer must prove that use of deadly force was necessary regardless of whether someone died or not.  They don’t just take the officer’s word for it either.  They interview the officer, their partner, both visual and auditory witnesses, the perp and any victims.  They look at the medical records.  They look at security camera and dash mounted cameras.  They retrieve the shell casings and if possible the bullets. They take the weapon and put it under lock and key.  They put the officer on admin leave during the investigation. They fire the weapon in question and compare it to the bullets recovered.  It’s a full investigation except the officer isn’t presumed innocent.  The fact that he fired a shot is known.  The only thing in question is “was it justified”?  For the most part this system works.  It’s rare that a dirty or incompetent cop lasts very long.  When dirty cops are found, the corruption usually extends up into the higher ranking officers so that such investigatory efforts are thwarted.  In those cases, the media and other local government agencies notice a pattern and step in to root out the corruption.  In spite of what Hollywood likes to tell you, systemic corruption such as the LAPD Rampart Scandal are the exception, not the rule.

2. Some will say ‘then maybe Americans should get this training’.  Really?  You want everyone in the U.S. to be trained to the level of police officers?   Because that is what it would take and we would STILL suffer these unintentional deaths.  Last time I checked we didn’t live in a failed, third world state.  This isn’t Somalia where everyone is a potential threat all the time.  This is supposed to be the Land of the Free and it can hardly be that if we all have to run around armed to the teeth and “en guarde” every moment like a LEO has to be. Never mind the fact that the majority of people in the U.S. wouldn’t make successfully through LEO training because they aren’t physically and mentally capable of completing said training. And before you say I’m being a snob, I include myself in this category. I went through LEO training in my 20′s. At 43, I’m not entirely sure I could do it again.

3. Lord knows we don’t have decent public transportation options in this state.

4. The oil and gas industry giants are making damn sure of that

5. At least, we’re not supposed to do it. Although I’ve heard stories of many, many Christian preachers encouraging people to vote for the white guy in the last election.  This mixing of religion and politics make us no better than the religious zealots who control Iran or used to run the Taliban.  We’re supposed to be better than that.  America is not supposed to be a Theocracy. Thomas Jefferson probably rolls in his grave every time a preacher gets political in church.

6. Again, we’re not supposed to do it and if we do we should be punished for it. Except for Dick Cheney and company, of course. He outed Valerie Plame’s identity as a CIA agent through his adviser, Scooter Libby, to a New York Times reporter because Plame’s husband had the temerity to report in the Press that Iraq did not have WMD’s in the run up to the Iraqi Invasion. Cheney wanted that damn war so bad he could taste it. After all, Halliburton, a company with whom Cheney’s financial fortune was entangled, was expected to make tens of millions of dollars out of the conflict.  Libby was eventually convicted of lying and obstructing a grand jury investigation into the Plame affair.  He was protecting Dick, of course.  Libby was given a commutation by President Bush, conveniently.  There were no consequences for Darth Cheney, however. Had it been you or I that outed a CIA agency, we would have served hard time in a federal prison.

Geeking out

Today must be a geek-out day for me.  Here’s a great video featuring the old AND the new Spock!  It’s commercial but don’t worry about it, it’s not in your face that way.  The interaction between Zachary Quinto and Leonard Nimoy is so damn funny.

Winter is FINALLY here, Ep. 6

The Facebook Recap for GOT Episode 6 is very, very funny (The one for Ep. 5 was okay). My favorite line (and this shouldn’t be a spoiler):

Baelish to Varys:   “Au contraire, my sackless friend. Everything is coming up Baelish!”

Welcome to the Grand Illusion

I am a big Game of Thrones fan–the HBO series now in its 3rd Season.  It is known ¹.  Anyway the eps this season have been off the charts and IMHO have some of the best acting on TV today.  It doesn’t hurt that the book this Season is based on is probably THE best books in the 5 book series (to date there are 5 but there will be 7 or 8 in the end) with tons of action, character development and just outstanding writing.  There is plenty of grist for the mill for the HBO series.

Most of the GOT eps don’t have themes per se and the writers/producers, David Benioff and D. B. Weiss, aka D&D as they are known online, have been pretty clear that “Themes are for eight-grade book reports“.   That all being said, I can’t help but think that last night’s episode entitled “The Climb” had some pretty big themes in it.  In GRRM’s ² books and now this show people are shown in all their beauty AND ugliness.  No one comes out of it clean or neat.  No one is as pure as Aragorn in LOTR ³ (who annoyed me because of it BTW).  This morning as I was reading some recaps and reviews of Sunday’s episode something occurred to me that I wanted to share here.

If you aren’t watching the show now but plan on it later don’t read below–there are SPOILERS!!!!!!  If you are watching it this season, then feel free to read my thoughts on last night’s episode.

SPOILERS!!!!!  SPOILERS!!!!!  SPOILERS!!!!!

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In “The Climb” at the end Varys and Littlefinger (aka, LF) have a conversation about power, chaos and social order before LF leaves the capital to begin a new chapter in his life ⁴.  The incredibly ambitious and unctuous LF reveals for the first time just how far he is willing to go to get what he wants and the audience realizes that LF probably has been behind most of the major crises in the kingdom.

Here’s how the scene breaks down.  Varys finds LF in the throne room having one last look at the Iron Throne.  Varys, in that wonderfully roundabout way that any great spy master can, accuses LF of wanting to sit on that throne, or at the very least control who sits on it.  He also indicates that he knows LF was behind the leak to the Lannisters about the secret engagement between Sansa and Loras ⁵.  LF, for once, does not dissemble or hide his glee at having thwarted just about everyone.  Instead he admits his involvement and then goes Varys one better.  He tells Varys why he has been plotting and scheming all along.

Varys’ admits his own motivation is “the good of the realm” and I believe this to be true.  LF derisively calls the “Iron Throne”, essentially the Westeros’ feudal power structure, an illusion of control and structure over chaos.  Varys warns LF,

But what do we have left when we abandon the lie?  Chaos.  A gaping pit waiting to swallow us all.

LF’s response is a great bit of writing on the show that isn’t in the books (this is a MAJOR SPOILER, youtube video of the scene).  LF says, “Chaos isn’t a pit.  Chaos is a ladder.”  While LF reveals an almost pathological and definitely sociopathic need to rise in power up the so-called “ladder” he is purposely trying to create, the point of view shifts to show King Joffrey walking away from poor Ros ⁶ strung up and looking like a pin cushion ⁷ .  Ros is used as an example of those who tried to climb the ladder and fell, breaking in that fall.  Then it switches to Sansa weeping uncontrollably for the loss of hope, the loss of any escape as she stares out to the ocean where LF’s ship sits waiting to sail away without her.  LF is probably thinking of Sansa when he says,

And some are given a chance to climb but they refuse. They cling to the realm or the gods or love.  Illusions.  Only the ladder is real.  The climb is all there is.

The final scene of the episode was Jon and Ygritte making it to the top of the wall.  Their own epic “climb” is at an end and they stand to enjoy the view from the top of the 700 foot wall.  This scene made me think about the illusion of the wall.  To be sure it is a very real thing, an almost insurmountable barrier between the North and the South.  Why was it created?  It was created, so most Westerosi will say, to keep wildling raiders at bay.  It was more likely created to stop the White Walkers from coming South and destroying almost everyone on the continent of Westeros as they did 8,000 years in the past. ⁸  In either case it is an illusion too.  The wall has not stopped wildling raids and there are stories passed down of wildlings coming over or under The Wall to take livestock, people, etc or to settle in the South.  And if wildlings can do it, the White Walkers and the Others ⁹ certainly can.  After all, these frozen zombies have no fear and greater than human strength.  The Wall will only be a speed bump to these supernatural beings.

Not only is the wall an illusion of comfort and strength, so is the Night’s Watch.  Jon learns before ever arriving at Castle Black that the nobility of the brotherhood he heard so much in the stories of his youth hides it’s true nature.  The brotherhood is a rag tag collection of people who have been cast out of society for crimes or for being the victim of political machinations or for simply having no other place to go, as is Jon’s case.  Once joining the Night’s Watch he sees his brothers violate their vows by going to a local town to visit with the whores.  He sees the lack of cohesiveness and petty squabbles that threaten their ranks.  He notices the squalor, the neglect and the general run-down nature of Castle Black and all of the watch stations that exist along The Wall.

D&D (and GRRM) don’t let anyone get off easy.  They strip the illusions from every character at some point, regardless of whether they are good, bad or in between.  Even LF isn’t immune.  LF is incredibly cynical and bitter.  That little bit about “refusing to climb” is pointedly mocking those who would be passive,  so unwilling to risk the unknown, the next rung.  And mixed in there is disappointment that Sansa, who looks so much like the love of his life, her mother Catelyn, refusing his help.  LF wants Sansa and he’s been working very hard to get her.  Her rejection stung.  So he ups the pressure on Sansa by helping arrange her marriage to Tyrion.  Sansa will be more desperate than ever to leave and she realizes, clearly, that she effed up by rejecting LF.  She’ll be prime pickins when he does finally leave King’s Landing.

Beyond these little plot points, however, there is a larger theme here.  D&D have been showing more and more concrete examples of the power of gods and magic in the series with Beric Dondarrion coming back from death not once but six times, Bran’s warging, Jojen’s far sight, the rise of the White Walkers and The Others, the return of Dragons, Melisandre’s shadow assassins, etc, etc.   But at the same time D&D have also been VERY unclear where these gods fit into the continuum of good v. evil, chaos v. order (it’s the same in the books).  Indeed, I would argue that the gods, all of them to date, are all evil or at the very least, have their own agenda that doesn’t include humans’ welfare (not that much different than LF come to think of it).

So far the gods’ minions (priests, priestesses, wights, etc) have spent most of their time harming people.  Where they have “helped” someone, like Melisandre has helped Stannis in his pursuit to be King, they’ve done so in some pretty evil ways (e.g., burning non-believers as sacrifice, murdering Renly, etc).

The only thing that is clear is that the gods and magic do exist and that they’re getting stronger.   That all being said, I don’t think LF (or D&D) was saying that gods/magic, the realm or love doesn’t actually exist.  I think his statement about “illusion” is more to say that they don’t matter.  They are an “illusion” because you can’t rely on them.  According to what D&D are showing us, in the GOT world you can’t rely on those things.  The gods have their own agenda and their priests and priestesses aren’t telling anyone else what that might be.  Love fails time and time again in this series.  And the realm?  Well it’s in chaos even while someone sits on the Iron Throne.  To LF love, gods/magic, the realm create circumstances to be adapted to or tools to manipulate circumstances into something more favorable to him.  In this LF is a socipathic capitalist in the worst sense of the term–a bootstrapper who doesn’t care who he steps on as he moves up in a chaotic free for all market.

Varys has had his own brush with the cruelty of the gods.  As a child his private parts were cut off in a ceremony by a priest.  As the priest burnt his parts in a brazier a supernatural voice spoke and Varys heard it loud and clear.  While he isn’t sure that it was a god, it didn’t matter to him.  All that mattered at the time was his survival, his future hope of revenge and a life-long mission to prevent the kind of cruelty and chaos that results from magic.  In a way Varys and LF share their disdain for magic and the gods but for different reasons.  They both probably realize they exist but neither of them will give them any credence.  Varys because magic/gods sow chaos and LF because they are simply tools to be used.  Regardless of this similarity, they are at loggerheads on the issue of which is better chaos or order.  I wonder how they will cope with the return of Dany to Westeros with her dragons. In the end Westeros will be a  nation at war with itself and blind to the threat from the North of an almost unstoppable supernatural force.  LF will probably end up being subsumed by the very chaos that helped to create this situation.  And Varys will cling to Dany and her dragons as the only means to create order in spite of his disdain for magic.

One other thing about these illusions that is important to point out….no one is spared from death and suffering in GOT.  Indeed it was first made painfully clear in Season 1 when the most important character in the series up to that point, Ned Stark, was beheaded.    No matter how honest, honorable, innocent or young a character may be and regardless of whether they are seeking to actually climb the ladder at all they can fall.  They are all on the ladder.  In addition there are so many things out of their control.  So many characters end up being unwitting obstacles to other characters.  Some end up being in the wrong place at the wrong time (e.g., Lady, Sansa’s direwolf was killed instead Arya’s, the butchers boy who befriended Arya).  Sometimes the bad person wins but if justice were true they should not (thinking of the sword fight between The Hound and Beric in Ep. 5 this season).  Unfair things happen, all the time in that world (and in ours).

The best one can hope for is to stay alive by clinging to the ladder as long as possible and in some cases continuing the climb no matter what the set backs are (e.g., Jaime after the loss of his hand).  I think D&D (and GRRM) are telling us that yes, illusions exist, but in order for these characters (and us) to successfully navigate life at least until they run into the uncontrollable thing that can kill them, they must not only see through those illusions but also work within and through those same constructs.  Not seeing through those illusions blinds them to what is and is not actually controllable.  In this Varys and LF are exactly alike. They see through the illusions, have a clearer vision of the possibilities and are therefore better suited to avoid being claimed by the uncontrollable. ¹⁰  That’s as good as it gets.

Notes:

1.  You would only understand this statement (“It is known”) if you had read the books that the show Game of Thrones are based on.  Series is called “A Song of Fire and Ice” by George R. R. Martin.  These “fantasy” books are different and better than anything else I’ve read in the fantasy genre since I started as a teenager.  They’re very accessible to non-Fantasy fans because the magic is peripheral.  It’s not the point of the books, it’s simply a device that helps propel and explain the story. I highly recommend them if you like intrigue and complicated plots.

2.  George R. R. Martin’s acronym name

3.  Lord of the Rings by Tolkien, can you tell I get tired of typing crap out and use lots of acronyms?

4.  Littlefinger is going to the Eyrie to marry Lysa Arryn, sister of the woman he really always wanted, Catelyn Stark.

5.  Because of LF’s meddling, Sansa can no longer marry Loras and escape her long captivity under the sadistic control of King Joffrey.  Instead she will be forced to marry Tyrion and Loras will be forced to marry Cersei.  No one is happy except for LF, who tipped off the Lannisters to the secret engagement, and Tywin, whose plan it was to change the marital partners in the first place.  LF was going to steal Sansa away from the capital but she refused his offer because she thought Loras would be a much better option (and she was right, he would have been).

6.  Varys used Ros, a prostitute who had risen pretty high in LF’s confidence as a spy and she told Varys about LF’s plan to run away with Sansa.  Varys helped set up the Loras/Sansa engagement to prevent that.  LF found out and made Ros pay for her disloyalty with her life.

7.  She is filled with arrows that Joffrey shot at her with a crossbow.  The number of errors that did not strike her indicate he toyed with her before putting over 5 arrows in her that finished his sadistic fantasy.  I won’t include the pic of it here, it is far too graphic.

8.  In the GOT world there are two main seasons, winter and summer, which can last for years.  About 8,000 prior there was a winter that got so cold and lasted so long it was called “The Long Night“.  That was the last time the White Walkers ravaged the population of Westeros.

9.  The White Walkers are some kind of supernatural being that have the ability to reanimate the corpses of people and animals.  The reanimated zombies are called The Others.

10.  Tyrion is another who sees through illusions BUT he hasn’t gotten to the same point as Varys or LF.  If you have read all of the books to date you know his story arc shows that he is getting there.

City on a hill, still

Tom Levenson over at Balloon-Juice.com has something interesting to say about Vice President Joe Biden’s speech given yesterday at the memorial service for the slain MIT police officer, Sean Collier*.  Bolded statements are my doing.

But Biden did limn a present realit [sic] as well, in that we still live in a country where a ruling like Hamdan v. Rumsfeld can be both heard and decided against the government. I live in a town where police officers tackled a cop-killer in the midst of a gun battle, in the hopes of keeping him alive long enough to face a court. Here in Boston, Dzokhar Tsarnaev was charged as a common criminal, read his rights (not fast enough for some, but still) and will in fact face civilian charges. This country are [sic] so far from perfect it sometimes feels like we’re [sic] can only approach perfection the long way round — but that’s in the nature of cities on hills. I’m pretty sure Joe had something like this in mind when he spoke yesterday.

And I have next to no doubt at all that he was scolding that claque of Republican leaders who seem to have lost all courage, John McCain, Lindsay Graham, Kelly Ayotte, and all the rest. They’ve been up on their hind legs since Friday, bellowing the urgency of making sure Tsarnaev face a jury-rigged military tribunal system, and damned be the American constitutional system and any faith in the power of a jury of Americans to do and be seen to have done justice.

That rebuke is what this speech was about, beyond the pure duty of comfort that Biden handled so well in the first, longer section of his remarks. He was telling a failed Republican party that America is something other than [sic] hollow republic the Bush-Cheney regime sought to build. He was as well talking to the broader audience through the TV set, making the case (again!) that there is an alternative to a government based on authority granted out of fear. He was reminding everyone in earshot that the way the Republicans ran the republic — and would do again, if they get the chance — is not just an error; it’s un-American. This was powerful stuff, and inside the political ring, it was [sic] had the power to hurt, a nut-cutting blow.

See, McCain and Company want Tsarnaev, who is a citizen, to be sent to Guantonomo and to be stripped of all his rights.  Why is it the Republicans are so interested in their own rights (see Rand Paul’s statement about drones and hot tubs**) but not all that interested in the rights of “those other” American citizens.  Hmmmmm, it couldn’t be because they ARE considered “other”, could it?

Besides the fear motive, all of this trumpeting originates from the conservative idea that our government is broken and that the only way to fix it is to step outside the rules.  Conservatives often propose letting some supposedly benevolent strong man or men (ala, G.W. Bush and Dick Cheney, but not Pres. Obama, ad oculos) take control of things and take away our rights.  Hell, they’re the main reason, and I mean Cheney specifically*** and his buddies, for the expansion of Executive power in the U.S.  Were it not for them, no current President (who is in office is irrelevant here) would have the ability to start a war and tell Congress afterward or allow the killing of an American citizen without benefit of Due Process or use military tribunals and indefinite detention for civilians.  This was never and never will be a liberal idea.****

Nevertheless for all of the Republican and, quite frankly, Democratic enabled transgressions of our values, we’re still shining on that hill just not as bright as we were before our ill-advised jaunt into Iraq and our fear-fueled foray into torture.  And we are certainly not as bright as we could be and never will be if we don’t remain true to our values.

Notes:

*  Look at his young face, it’s hard not to be angry.  It was hard looking at the photos and video of the bomb victims.  I still can’t look at the picture of that sweet little boy who was killed. I understand their anger.  I don’t understand their throwing our values out the window because of it.  That’s not what grown ups are supposed to do and it sure as hell isn’t what the leaders of the free world are supposed to do.

**Rand does not want to be viewed in his hot tub by a government drone but is A-Okay with drones shooting people in commission of a crime, which goes waaaaayyyy beyond what the police would do.  In fact, Levenson above gives an excellent example of how the police met deadly force with restraint in order to serve the larger goal of justice.  Drones can’t do that and Rand Paul should know better and he probably does.  See he only wants drones to “provide justice” to everyone else but he and his clique.  Stupid man must not have studied history or he was too busy smoking dope to remember that such power never, ever remains targeted at just the people you want it to.  First they came for the Jews, then they came for gypsies, then they came for…..etc, etc, etc.

***Cheney openly admits in interviews and in writing that way back when he was in the Nixon Administration that he supported and pushed for the expansion of Executive Power in a variety of ways.  And when in office he claimed Executive Privilege over the tapes/minutes of his meeting with Oil Executives back in 2003-2004.

****Although not a liberal idea, conservatives will claim that liberal Presidents have not minded using that expanded Executive Privilege.   First, I don’t think we’ve ever had a truly liberal President, maybe Carter? President Obama is not a liberal.  He is a centrist Democrat.  He not only claims this but anyone on the left can categorically tell you, he is not a liberal Democrat and never has been.  Second, every President, regardless of Party, has taken advantage of the expansion of power given to the office because it makes their job easier.  As President Obama said during his interview with Jon Stewart, it’s Congress’ and the Supreme Court’s job to take those powers away and they SHOULD do that.  The branches must balance one another out.  But Congress and SCOTUS, filled with Republicans, will continue to give the Executive Branch more and more power because at some point one of their party will be in office and they REALLY like taking advantage of such things (e.g., waterboarding with impunity) because democracy inconveniently gets in the way of their profiteering….um, I mean governing.

The act of owning

Unfortunately, in life we don’t get to own something without the possibility of disowning it in future because shit happens. Sometimes this is a good thing.  For example, if we grow up with a prejudice, openly acknowledge and accept that we are prejudiced, we might later in life learn differently and disown that very same idea.  That’s a good thing.  The opposite problem of taking on something that is positive, particularly the kinds of things that require a lot of responsibility and long term commitment,  and then having to later let it go….well, that just plain sucks.

I’m speaking here of my cats.  I adopted two sweet and beautiful but sickly kittens from the Humane Society in Central Phoenix back in 2010 when they were only about 3 to 4 months old: Cry Baby and Snow Shooze (pics below, same order).

My little Zsa Zsa, “Don’t hate me because I am beautiful”	My funny lover kitty…..”What?! You wanna use the Sink?”

We nursed them through the worst of it and they’ve grown into beautiful healthy and loving cats.  Unfortunately for them, my life has been through a lot of changes since we adopted them….a divorce, a couple of moves, financial hardship and illness.  Over the last few months my daughter’s and my own allergies to them have worsened to the point where I had to bar them from bedrooms of our small 2 bedroom apartment.  So they’ve been stuck in a now tiny area of the living room and kitchen, which quite frankly is making them a little stir crazy.  Moreover, I can’t love on them without getting pretty sick and my daughter can’t without having an asthma attack.   I also haven’t been able to get them to the Vet because if I have to choose between getting my 2 year old his shots or my cat….well my son wins out on that choice.  Lord knows, they’re exposed to a lot less than he is.  They don’t get sent to daycare Monday thru Friday where there’s a bunch of snotty nosed sick kittens running around all the time.

Now to add to all of that, my lease on the apartment ends next month and the apartment complex wants about $300 extra per month to continue month-to-month which is what would be required for me to get through until September when the court will do a review of the custody change for my daughter.  I was going to just do a month-to-month lease to avoid the stress of moving and wait until the court thing was done because the judge put moving restrictions on where I could move during that time period–am restricted to a 5 mi radius of her school.  But the cost of doing month-to-month is absurd for such a tiny apartment that quite frankly is too damn noisy.  And it’s not just noisy….I can smell my neighbors’ cigar and cigarette smoke, which sends me and my daughter into more allergic paroxysms.  I can’t stand it, to be honest. The one PTSD thing I have left in my life is a VERY negative emotional reaction to cigarette smoke.   So beyond just sneezing constantly, swollen eyes and unable to breath, I get enraged every time I am exposed to it in a place where I am supposed to feel “safe”.  My home is my refuge and the one place where I shouldn’t have someone else’s cancer sticks invading that space.  (ok rant done)

Furthermore, for the extra money I’d be spending on month to month I could actually find a larger, quieter, smoke free place.  I’ve decided to go ahead and move–to find a house within the 5 mile area.  So I now have a deadline by which I have to find them a new home, May 30th–that’s my move day.  It boils down to this, I HAVE to find the cats a new home.  I’ve tried an online community (www.balloon-juice.com rocks, BTW) and while they were able to help me out with vet bills to get them ready for a new home, no one came forward to adopt them.  I’m contacting local rescue agencies but I know that they don’t really take cats from individuals and instead rescue them from the street or rescue them from shelters just before they are to be euthanized.  But maybe somebody, somewhere will take them or give me some advice on what I can do.  My absolute last resort will be to take them back to the Humane Society.  I actually thought about making them outdoors cats but that’s not really possible here in AZ.  Summer is coming up and leaving any domesticated animal out in weather over 100 degrees is cruel.  Not mention the constant dangers of coyotes (yes, they’re all over here and they treat cats like hors d’oeuvres), feral cats and their diseases (of which there are many), and a million other outside threats that these cats aren’t used to just seems like the wrong thing to do.  After all, they were rescued from the streets in the first place.  I owe it to them not to put them out there again.

To own is to owe.  I owe them a comfortable and safe place to be for the rest of their lives.  And I own that responsibility to the point that thinking about giving them up to who knows what fate makes me feel physically ill.  But I also own the responsibility to my kids to provide an environment that doesn’t make them constantly sick.  I have so many conflicting responsibilities.  Sometimes you just can’t do them all.  That kind of Spock logic may be true but it doesn’t make me feel any better about it.

Suffice it to say, I am owning up to the fact I just can’t have animals right now and maybe never again.  So unless I end up alone in my later years with no conflicting responsibilities and am desperately in need companionship I am never going to adopt another pet.  Giving them away hurts really bad but I know it’s the right thing to do.  I own that and I owe it to them as well.

PS:  If you know anyone that is interested in adopting my cats, please contact me.

The deserving, continued

Today, I just can’t resist putting Glenn Beck on my list of people who deserve to be beaten about the head and shoulders with a tube sock full of butter. He said this yesterday:

No American citizen blows up random people. That’s a Middle Eastern scene, that’s not an American scene — when our crazies go off, they target the government, not streets that are crowded with people.

EXCEPT for these little incidents here, right Glenn?

• 2010 Byron Williams - murdered a police officer on the way to massacre the local ACLU office in CA saying he wanted to start a revolution (and not surprisingly he was/is a BIG Beck fan)
• 2008 Jim David Adkisson - murdered 2 and injured 7 at a UU Church in TN because he hated liberals
• 1996 Eric Rudolph - bombed innocents in Olympic Park in Atlanta during 1996 Olympics
• 1995 Timothy McVeigh – bombed a government building in Oklahoma City killing dozens including 19 children all under the age of 6
• 1978 to 1995 Ted Kaczynski — many bombings over a 17 year period of time
• 1966 Charles Whitman –infamous Univ of Texas tower shooter who killed 17 people and wounded 32 AFTER having killed his mother and wife at home.
• 1963 4 KKK members – Robert Chambliss, Thomas E. Blanton Jr, Herman Cash, and Bobby Frank Cherry bombed the 16th Street Baptist Church and took the life of four girls in Birmingham, AL

Need I go on? Notice anything in common about this list? All of them red blooded and white skinned Americans.  There aren’t enough “butter socks” in the world for the Glenn Beck’s of the world.