The joy of living this particular life...
"They are the architects of greatness, their vision lies within their souls, they peer beyond the veils and mists of doubt and pierce the walls of unborn Time. Makers of Empire, they have fought for bigger things than crowns and higher seats than thrones. Your homes are set upon the land a dreamer found. The pictures on its walls are visions from a dreamer's soul. They are the chosen few - the blazers of the way. Walls crumble and Empires fall, the tidal wave sweeps from the sea and tears a fortress from its rocks. The rotting nations drop off from Time's bough, and only things the dreamers make live on." ~ Herbert Kaufman, American Writer, 1878-1947
That's right: I watched the WHOLE four and a half minutes.
ReplyDeleteI now have enough joy in my viv to spread among those less fortunate.
You're just a glutten for joy, trish.
ReplyDeleteJoy is high in gluten.
ReplyDeletePakistan's troops advance against Taliban Prime Minister Yusaf Raza Gillani said taxes would be eliminated in areas where the army had damaged property.
ReplyDeleteGul Maeen, 40, who walked four days on a withered foot to reach the Jalala camp, was not impressed. "We would hope they'd help us rebuild our houses," he said. "But for that, we need peace first."
Independent defense analyst Shireen Mazari said the displaced were poor enough that they probably don't pay taxes in the first place. The only way a tax plan might work, she added, would be if it provided tax breaks for investors to create jobs and growth.
The U.N. refugee agency said it had registered 907,000 people displaced by the fighting since May 2, in addition to the 565,000 forced to leave their homes last year amid violence.
Only about 80,000 people, generally the poorest or those with few alternatives, are in the camps. Most have moved in with relatives and friends or created makeshift settlements along roads and in fields.
...so Pakistan is ahead of librarians and conservatives combined, in the USA, in the real World of lower taxes.
ReplyDelete(more of that "small govt lie" that I suffer from eternally, cause I don't know what it is)
She's a gluten for nourishment.
ReplyDeleteI'm joyful and I haven't watched it:
ReplyDeleteWhy tempt fate?
It might trigger terminal Depression.
Tahoe
ReplyDeleteSo, the Euros have Candide, and Bill Shakespeare; an we have Dancing Cockatoos, and Mark Twain.
ReplyDeleteI think they're well, and truly, stuffed.
9. JMH:
ReplyDeleteI attened the university in my home town (Humboldt State, part of the California State system) for one year before transferring to a UC school.
It had a brand new engineering building when I went there, designed to use “passive” solar technology to heat and cool the entire buidling.
This was coastal northern California, where the temperature is pretty moderate all year ’round. 50’s in the winter, 70’s in the summer.
"The building, which became known as the Temple of Doom for the huge cracks in the slab foundation and constant plubming problems, was miserable year round.
In my 8:00am classes, everyone was wearing coats inside and constantly blowing on their hands to keep their fingers limber enough to take notes.
By 2:00pm it had become uninhabitably hot - a greenhouse without enough ventilation - and students dripped sweat onto their lab notebooks.
Calling it a “Temple” was more accurate than we knew at the time, since these projects are mostly religious offerings to Gaia.
The video clip Wretchard has reminds me of dear old Humboldt State as well. I has a show on the college radio station which led to a part time job at a local commercial AM station. The AM station had a WWII vintage transmitter that used vacuum tubes about the size of the light bulbs in that clip. The were huge, and nobody made them any more. one day we blew a tube and went off the air. The engineer scrambled to the station and replaced the tube. When he fired the transmitter back up, it blew one of the other tubes. We only had one spare on hand. He called around frantically, and finally located a spare somewhere in Montana. They expressed it to us, but we were off the air for three days.
You might say the radio station didn’t have an adequate design margin for transmitter tubes. The Temple of Doom didn’t have an adequate design period. Glad those sort of mistakes don’t happen on a national scale…
May 16, 2009 - 8:03 am
10. Doug:
JMH:
Have you seen “Humbolt” the movie?
If not, I recomend it.
Much of it shot in or near Arcata.
—
We sold our farm to a guy that created the semi-famous “Dickmobile” in Mckinleyville.
Let them eat Cockatoo foie gras, I say, Rufus.
ReplyDeleteHarvard Crimson - Defiling America's Deity Like most pieces of art, either driven or stationary, the new cars have provoked a great deal of discussion. Paige's phallic "Dickmobile" is perhaps the most controversial.
ReplyDeleteBuilt on a 1954 Hillman Minx chassis, the head of "The Dickmobile" is 18 gauge steel stretched over a pencil wire frame, while the body of the car is molded fiberglass. The entire vehicle is painted in various shades of pink, except the purple exhaust columns that run along the sides, and the rear of the car that is painted a pubic hair black. The plush interior of the car is upholstered in tufted black naugahyde and has a rosewood dashboard and paneling.
The reaction of most drivers and pedestrians to "The Dickmobile" is one of bewildered amusement. "People don't know what to think," Paige says, "but most begin to laugh and make jokes."
One group that hasn't found "The Dickmobile" particularly funny is the Los Angeles Police Department. Although the Dickmobile is licensed by the state, the L.A. police have stopped Paige no fewer than eight times in the past year "to check it for safety." "I think the reason the police stop me," Paige says, "is because 'The Dickmobile' is a symbol more powerful than the symbol of the police car."
Once when Paige was cruising down L.A.'s prestigious Wilshire Boulevard, he was stopped by two policemen who admonished him for driving an obscene vehicle. The officers were particularly worried because of the large number of elderly residents in the area. "The police were afraid they might have heart attacks if they saw 'The Dickmobile,'" Paige said. One 70-year-old man who happened by proved them wrong. "Do you know what that is?" the old man queried as he broke into a fit of laughter. "It's the greatest thing I've ever seen."
THE ADMIRERS of "The Dickmobile" haven't all been oldsters. On Sunset Strip one evening, Paige was approached by a buxom young woman who jumped on "The Dickmobile's" hood and demanded that her picture be taken with the car.
"the L.A. police have stopped Paige no fewer than eight times in the past year
ReplyDelete"to check it for safety ."
"I think the reason the police stop me," Paige says, "is because
'The Dickmobile' is a symbol more powerful than the symbol of the police car."
We sold the farm to the creator of the Dickmobile.
ReplyDeleteHave a picture of the wife standing out in the pasture standing next to the Mobile Organ.
... and stop enabling ...
ReplyDeleteThe Congress/Administration was not enabled by trish, certainly not by me, but by a majority of the electorate of these United States."This isn't an either/or problem set.
standing next to the Mobile Organ.Would that be You or the Car?
ReplyDelete:)
I thought of another:
ReplyDeleteMiss California--ruined
That Snowball sure knows how to say 'yes' to life, right at the end of the video, praise right to the end.
ReplyDelete---
Praise to the End!
by Theodore Roethke
1
It’s dark in this wood, soft mocker.
For whom have I swelled like a seed?
What a bone-ache I have.
Father of tensions, I’m down to my skin at last.
It’s a great day for the mice.
Prickle-me, tickle-me, close stems.
Bumpkin, he can dance alone.
Ooh, ooh, I’m a duke of eels.
Arch my back, pretty-bones, I’m dead at both ends.
Softly softly, you’ll wake the clams.
I’ll feed the ghost alone.
Father, forgive my hands.
The rings have gone from the pond.
The river’s alone with its water.
All risings
Fall.
2
Where are you now, my bonny beating gristle,
My blue original dandy, numb with sugar?
Once I fished from the banks, leaf-light and happy:
On the rocks south of quiet, in the close regions of kissing,
I romped, lithe as a child, down the summery streets of my veins,
Strict as a seed, nippy and twiggy.
Now the water’s low. The weeds exceed me.
It’s necessary, among the flies and bananas, to keep a constant vigil,
For the attacks of false humility take sudden turns for the worse.
Lacking the candor of dogs, I kiss the departing air;
I’m untrue to my own excesses.
Rock me to sleep, the weather’s wrong.
Speak to me, frosty beard.
Sing to me, sweet.
Mips and ma the mooly moo,
The likes of him is biting who,
A cow’s a care and who’s a coo?—
What footie does is final.
My dearest dear my fairest fair,
Your father tossed a cat in air,
Though neither you nor I was there,—
What footie does is final.
Be large as an owl, be slick as a frog,
Be good as a goose, be big as a dog,
Be sleek as a heifer, be long as a hog,—
What footie will do will be final.
I conclude! I conclude!
My dearest dust, I can’t stay here.
I’m undone by the flip-flap of odious pillows.
An exact fall of waters has rendered me impotent.
I’ve been asleep in a bower of dead skin.
It’s a piece of a prince I ate.
This salt can’t warm a stone.
These lazy ashes.
3
The stones were sharp,
The wind came at my back;
Walked along the highway,
Mincing like a cat.
The sun came out;
The lake turned green;
Romped upon the goldy grass,
Aged thirteen.
The sky cracked open
The world I knew;
Lay like the cats do
Sniffing the dew.
I dreamt I was all bones;
The dead slept in my sleeve;
Sweet Jesus tossed me back:
I wore the sun with ease.
The several sounds were low;
The river ebbed and flowed:
Desire was winter-calm,
A moon away.
Such owly pleasures! Fish come first, sweet bird.
Skin’s the least of me. Kiss this.
Is the eternal near, fondling?
I hear the sound of hands.
Can the bones breathe? This grave has an ear.
It’s still enough for the knock of a worm.
I feel more than a fish.
Ghost, come closer.
4
Arch of air, my heart’s original knock,
I’m awake all over:
I’ve crawled from the mire, alert as a saint or a dog;
I know the back-stream’s joy, and the stone’s eternal pulseless longing, Felicity I cannot hoard.
My friend, the rat in the wall, brings me the clearest messages;
I bask in the bower of change;
The plants wave me in, and the summer apples;
My palm-sweat flashes gold;
Many astounds before, I lost my identity to a pebble;
The minnows love me, and the humped and spitting creatures.
I believe! I believe!—
In the sparrow, happy on gravel;
In the winter-wasp, pulsing its wings in the sunlight;
I have been somewhere else; I remember the sea-faced uncles.
I hear, clearly, the heart of another singing,
Lighter than bells,
Softer than water.
Wherefore, O birds and small fish, surround me.
Lave me, ultimate waters.
The dark showed me a face.
My ghosts are all gay.
The light becomes me.
No one individual, here or anywhere van "enable" this or the past Administration.
ReplyDeleteIn many ways the government is self-enabling, and no individual can stop it.
But since I may not fully understand your storyline, explain please, why and how you think individuals are enabling the Government, and how they could avoid it, please do.
Since you, as a newly employeed Federal, actually are enabling Obama and his Administration to function.
Are you advising yourself to quit, in the effort to disempower the Administration.
A resignation in protest of the enabling election results?
The combined decision of those voters being what empowers any Administration or the combined three branches of US Government
As to Ms California, she's been elevated, not ruined. Her 15 minutes of fame, extended to days, with a whole new fan base created.
ReplyDeleteSame with regatrds to Sarah Palin, doubt that if you were to ask her, that she considers herself ruined.
Trent Lott, Federal pension fully vested, is far from ruined.
Unless of course by ruined you mean something other than ruined.
Total destruction or disintegration, either physical, moral, social, or economic.
Seems none of those you claim were ruined, really are.
We need a guy like a Dave Ramsey to get us out of this pickle. On the national level.
ReplyDelete"We'rrrreeeee deeebbbbtttt frreeeeeeeeee"--
--
Joy, applause, laugher.
But we're in a bog, a real hard clog, a long, long slog, we're told on the blog, things have all gone to the dog, but don't expect any real help from them.--
--
It's a beast Ronald Reagan said, a beast that demands to be fed. And the beast seems to have the votes to order the groceries, just now.
It's hard to see how it gets better.
So we'll just have to kick our heels, and see how it feels, to say 'yes' in the face of the depression.
And take our own Tylenol to the ER room.
Sarah Palin was making some plans for some group or other to solicit donations to help her pay her legal bills for fighting all these politically motivated 'corruption' charges.
ReplyDeleteShe isn't a rich woman.
She may not be ruined yet, but they are trying.
Was anyone ever caught or charged for burning down the Wasilla church? (Trying to burn down the Wasilla church)
German economy shrinks 3.8% in first quarter...
ReplyDeleteHong Kong suffers record contraction...
US prices fall most since 1955...
EUROPE IN DEEPEST RECESSION SINCE WWII
Happy days are here again, lala lala, fala lala
Select Kaufmanisms:
ReplyDeleteA coward can't conquer anything, because he can't conquer himself.
The man who won't go through to the finish has finished at the start.
They who fight in the dark do not shine in the light.
Mind your own business and in time you'll have a business of your own to mind. Herbert Kaufman
Semi-Famous "Dickmobile"--
ReplyDelete--
Or MobileyDick? Anyway was the only depiction I could find.
Appropriate for an Elephant Bar--
ReplyDelete- or the torrents of spring--
By the way - Elephants don't move once they're mounted. The phallus does the moving as it has its own muscle source. (You get tidbits of knowledge like that when you've been married to a veterinarian. :)
`
#1 Meta on 2009-05-15 17:17hmmm, interestin'
Joie de Vivre At Any Time Any Place
The Vietnamese used to sell wood carvings of humping elephants. forgotabout that. Thanks for the memory.
ReplyDeleteThe list grows:Down's children,
ReplyDeleteChristians,
(We'll get the Jews w/policy)
...all grist for The One's Compassionate Mill.
Which Grinds...
TOP WHITE HOUSE ADVISOR SUGGESTS FIRST FAMILY NAME DOG 'MISS CALIFORNIA'...
al-Bob,
ReplyDeleteI know all about Cucumbers too:
My wifes a Vegetarian.
Rufus,
ReplyDeleteWe had no wide angle lens, so we could not fit
All of Me
in the scene.
'Rat, ever the contrarian,
ReplyDeleteever the MSM/Left Shill,
ever Wrong,
Insists PC does not decimate our freedom to speak, safely.
(as the list of banned speech grows)
Finally, there was the conversation weaving between, of all things, Miss California U.S.A. Carrie Prejean, the same-sex marriage opponent who the panel had already mocked at length, and Bo, the Obama family’s Portuguese water dog.
ReplyDeleteWhen Mr. Axelrod was asked how involved he was in the selection of Bo, he jokingly answered that he “only got called in for the final three.”
But as Mr. Axelrod was trying to set the record straight – he actually was not consulted – Mr. Sagal asked about the two runner-ups.
“One was Miss California,” Mr. Axelrod cracked to the audience’s laughter.
---
Nothing amiss here, just ask 'Rat:
He'd be fine with all that, even if his daughter was the OBJECT of ridicule.
"thesame-sex marriage opponent "
ReplyDelete---
She distinctly stated she was not an opponent, but a proponent of traditional marrige.
---
Raping our language of meaning.
Liberal Taliban Issues Fatwa Against Miss CaliforniaNot even Dick Cheney can incite the blood-curdling rage of liberals at the sight of a sexy Evangelical Christian. Paula Jones, Katherine Harris, Michele Bachmann, Sarah Palin and, most recently, Miss California, Carrie Prejean, have all come under a frenzy of attacks from liberals.
ReplyDeleteChristians are supposed to be fat, balding sweaty little men with bad complexions. It's liberals who are supposed to be the sexy ones. (I know that from watching "The West Wing" and all movies starring Julia Roberts.)
But sadly for liberals, in real life, the fat, balding sweaty little guy with the bad complexion is Perez Hilton and the smoking-hot babe is Carrie Prejean.
This apparent contradiction incites violent anger in liberals, triggering their famous "fight or flight" response. So liberal masturbators are, once again, launching furious attacks on a beautiful Christian in a fit of pique similar to the one directed at Joan of Arc.
---
This time in real life, the fat, balding sweaty guy was Axelrod.
I wonder if that is true, elephants having a self moving pecker.
ReplyDeleteThough it seems a little odd when first thinking about it, I suppose it would seem perfectly normal once you're used to it.
Might come in handy if you had a back sprain.
Well, doug, without the media Ms Caiifirnia would still be an unknown lingerie model. Not at the vanguard of a scoial movement. She is a model that thrives on publicity. Or she'd not be Ms California.
ReplyDeleteShe is far from ruined, which is the point of the rebuff. The media is creating a new career for her, if she wants to pursue being a cultural conservative spokesperson, rather than a being a lingerie model.
Running for National Office is a rich man's game. They're all millionaires. If the common folk want to play, ala Mrs Palin, they best come loaded for bear.
I assume that the media is still biased, doug, because I know it has been my entire life. Nothing new or ground breaking there.
What is your action plan, now that we still agree?
How do YOU plan to turn that tide?
Let's try your program out in the Hawaiian media market. It is the perfect isolated test bed for whatever you think'll work.
I wouldn't consider buying a newspaper, even though they may be in distress sales.
Really, I agree, but what of that?
I don't spend mmcuh time bemoaning realities that I know I cannot effect, like the weather or the media.
All you can do is take advantage of the opportunities that do arise, regardless of the bias, just like Ms California and Sarah Palin have.
If Sarah is having finance troubles, bob, she's not yet ready for Prime Time, on the National level.
The game is not fair, there.
I'd advise you to organize a boycott of the media programing you disapprove of, and their sponsors, but you are not even part of the consumer media market.
ReplyDeleteYou are outside of the demographic that concerns them, you are not even one of their consuming customers.
You've isolated yourself outside their area of concern. You're a media hermit, homeless in the media market, but for the INet. Which is not a big economic winner for the conventional media companies that anger you.
Boycot Trump, but I doubt you've ever visited one of his hotels, casinos or condo projects, let alone spent money, there.
So your personal boycott would have little impact upon their interests.
National organization would be required to impact their topline.
Better to spend your time and effort getting a Republican to represent your Congressional District.
Think Nationally, Act Locally
Obama wasn't rich when he ran. Just had a lot of money guys and the democratic party behind him. Good organization too. Probably a lot of overseas money as well.
ReplyDeleteBill Clinton wasn't a born rich kid. Has become rich, though.
But a lot of politicians are rich, on both sides. Too much so.
Obama quickly forgot his campaign financing pledge. Quickly forgetten, like much else.
Mr Obama became a millionaire when Lester Crown signed his book deal.
ReplyDelete$2.? million advance.
Certainly paid off for Mr Crown.
The book sales have done quite well.
Gotta be connected, to play on the big field, just is a fact of life.
The costs of a successful Statewide campaign, even for Senator make it so.
At the House level, a couple of million can make a candidate competitive, if the incumbent is vulnerable.
Unless we go to public finace of election campaigns, which would be the kiss of death.
Team Obama has not given up on local political action. In duece's town they're out canvassing, looking for support where ever thwy can find it.
ReplyDeleteThe campaign goes on 24/7 - 365.
Beating the bushes for votes.
Read Alinsky's book.
Read David v Golaith.
Gotta press 'em, the whole length of the court, not just the last 90 days of the election cycle.
Team Obama is still out on the streets, pressing the flesh.
The Republicans retread Lynne Cheney and send her out on the talking head circut.
Is Lynne the gay daughter?
ReplyDeleteLongish dirty blonde hair, not a slight woman, but not obese either. She's always seated.
I always wonder, when I see her, if she is the muff diving Cheney girl.
Could google it, but nah ...
Same way I envision Barney Frank bent over his kitchen table, with his pimp roommate drivin' him home, whenever i see him on the news.
ReplyDeleteSaw him on some show or another, Barney has really pigged out, bloated big time. So much so his shirt didn't fit, fat ass didn't even care enough about his public appearence to dress for success.
Obama, he got the money, from Mr Crown, before he was Senator Obama, as I recall the story.
ReplyDeleteHe came to the National game, well prepared and a millionaire.
Don't kid yourself otherwise.
His is not a real log cabin story.
No one wants to take the Egypt bet?
ReplyDeleteCome on, whadda think, will President Obama go to the Islamic Mosque complex to give his speech?
Dollars, pesos, euros, ameros, yuan or "special drawing rights" at the local IMF office can be accepted as tender.
Be spun as an Islamic learning center, one that includes a mosque.
ReplyDeleteAs Harvard or Yale both have churches and chapels on campus.
Easy enough to make that case in the US press.
Same as he is going to Notre Dame to speak. A Catholic University.
The precedent of speaking at a religious learning centers will be set, before he goes.
Not really up on that story but I'll bet a yuan, the new international currency, that he goes to the mosque.
ReplyDeleteWhen is this all to take place?
Washington, DC — U.S. President Barrack Obama will visit Ghana July 10 and 11 at the conclusion of a trip that will also take him to Russia and Italy, the White House announced Saturday.
ReplyDeleteThe trip will come a month after Obama's scheduled visit to Egypt to deliver an address on U.S. relations with the Muslim world.
The White House statement about the Ghana trip gave no details of the visit beyond saying "the President will discuss a range of bilateral and regional issues with Ghanaian President Mills." John Atta Mills assumed office two weeks before Obama in January, after a narrow victory over the ruling party candidate in the country's fifth multi-party presidential election since 1992.
"The President and Mrs. Obama look forward to strengthening the U.S. relationship with one of our most trusted partners in sub-Saharan Africa, and to highlighting the critical role that sound governance and civil society play in promoting lasting development," the White House statement said.
...
Before traveling to Cairo for his June 4 speech, Obama will meet with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak at the White House. Mubarak's visit on May 26-27 will be his first to Washington in five years.
Obama will travel to Ghana after taking part in the G-8 Summit in L'Aquila, Italy and spending two days in Moscow as guest of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.
While I am a proponent of eliminating the Federal Reserve System altogether, I believe that as long as the Federal Reserve exists it should be fully audited. According to current federal law, the Fed's agreements with foreign governments and central banks--and, more important, its open market and monetary policy operations--are exempt from an audit by the General Accounting Office. As the GAO observed in the 1970s, the last time the issue of an audit really came to the fore, "We do not see how we can satisfactorily audit the Federal Reserve System without authority to examine the largest single category of financial transactions and assets that it has." The Fed has such broad power to intervene in the economy and to engage in agreements with foreign governments and central banks that it is unconscionable that such actions are exempt from oversight.
ReplyDeleteThe Fed's open market operations are not at all neutral in allocating credit. The Fed creates new balances out of thin air and uses those new balances to purchase Treasury bills from banks. Thus the banking sector is the first to get the use of the new money created in these bank balances. As this new money circulates through the economy, prices rise, and individuals further down the chain experience a higher cost of living before their salaries rise.
Fed Up
Ron Paul,
Audit the Federal Reserve.
Ziaul Abrar, a teacher who had stayed behind to guard his house, complained: “There were only 10-15 Taliban in the village but the whole place has been bombed. We were displaced, our houses destroyed, our crops destroyed and our cattle killed to target just a few militants. We want the elimination of the Taliban but this is no way to do it.”Pakistan Army Gets Serious--
ReplyDelete--
Zardari was written up as something of a mental case but seems more or less in control of this. Though he might be gone tomorrow. Who's in charge?
Going where Musharif feared to go.
Mark Styen has a good article about the torture debate.
ReplyDeleteSpeaker Nancy is guilty of torture, if you believe waterboarding is torture, and she does, so she says.
Nan the Conspirator
Cheney and Nan
Watching the Democrats champing at the bit last week, I thought perhaps we could cut to the chase and handcuff Cheney and Pelosi to a radiator in the basement of a CIA safe house somewhere. But on reflection this would be an unacceptable level of torture. It would be ungallant to say for whom.
ReplyDeleteSteyn
In the meaning of this story, that Primal Being antecedent to consciousness--which in the beginning thought, "I" and felt fear, then desire--is the motivating substance activating each one of us in our unconsciously motivated lives. And the second lesson of the myth is that through our own experiences of the union of love we participate in the creative action of that ground of all being. For, according to the Indian/Hindu view, our separatemenss from each other in space and time here on Earth--our multitude--is but a secondary, deluding aspect of the truth, which is that in essence we are of one being, one ground; and we know and experience that truth--going out of ourselves, outside the limits of ourselves--in the rapture of love.
ReplyDeleteThe great German philosopher Schopenhauer, in a magnificent essay on "The Foundations of Morality" treats of this transcendental spiritual experience. How is it, he asks, that an individual can so forget himself and his own safety that he will put himself and his life in jeopardy to save another from pain or death--as though that other's life were his own, that other's danger his own?Joseph Campbell
HOW ABOUT EVEN FOR A CAT?:)
In a more humourous take off on this theme I found this passage in "The Ship of Fools":
On the port side, Dr. Schumann stepped carefully around a game of shuffleboard without observing the players, but nodding Good Day in their direction; and saw, at the same time, almost without seeing, Ric and Rac. the two Spanish children, beguiling the ship's cat, a fine tiger tom, with back strokings and ticklings under his chin. The cat arched, his face full of sophisticated pleasure, and allowed himself to be picked up between them.
He was heavy, loose, ungainly in his surrender, and in his sensual trance he did not grasp the nature of their intentions towards him until it was almost too late. With sharpened faces and urgent hands, Ric and Rac lifted him to the rail and tried to push him overboard. He stiffened, dug his foreclaws into the rail, braced and clawed fiercely with his hind feet; his back went into a bow, his tail became a wild plume. Silently, desperately, he fought with all his weapons.
Dr. Schumann fairly leaped forward and seized the children back from the rail. They brought the cat with them in their rush; he fell out of their clutches and tore his way across deck straight through the shuffleboard game--a thing he ordinarily would not have done, for he was a polite cat.
.....Dr. Schumann sat down carefully in the nearest chair, breathing as lightly and delicately as he could, holding himself together with intent stillness. He had a very ordinary kind of heart troule and might drop dead at any moment. He felt his pulse softly with two fingers, but he knew the count already; he knew exactly what was happening, what always did, or could, happen at the slightest shock or sudden movement: he had been over this rather dull case so often in the past two years there was nothing new to say or think; above all, alas, nothing new to be done.
.....He sat with a fated calm of a man caught in a thunderstorm in an open space, rather humourously counting on a scale of chance he knew to by mythical. At last, cautiously, he felt in his inside pocket and brought out the small phial of crystal drops....
The thing he could never explain to himself about this incident was this: knowing about himself such a simple daylight fact, with his orderly plan to live as long as he could on whatever terms he could make with his disease, he had endangered his life to save the life of a cat, a kind of animal he disliked by temperament; he was devoted to dogs. Given a moment of reflection, would he have leaped so and risked the stopping of his heart to save---even his wife?Ship of Fools--movie--
--
Lee Marvin was in this movie.
I wouldn't in the ordinary course of affairs advise risking your life to save a cat.:)
heh, Katherine Anne Porter was related to Danial Boone--
ReplyDeleteCallie Russel Porter, born in Indian Creek, Texas,[1] was the fourth of five children of Harrison Boone Porter and Alice (Jones) Porter. Her family tree can be traced back to American frontiersman Daniel Boone, a heritage of which she was proud.
Hi,
ReplyDeleteI begin on internet with a directory