The bright side of a Moon
I added some new(er) pictures of my cat, Smacky to my Picture Gallery, as promised, and not very late.
In other news, I gave him a bath yesterday, on the advice of a friend (thanks, Christi!), and then used some flea powder on him. He’s better, but still scratching and I can still see fleas on him. I’m going to try the drops on him next, since several folks have suggested that.
You can tell a lot about someone from how they react when caught in a lie.
Is that too obvious? Dunno, but that thought was going ’round and ’round in my head last night when I was trying to sleep. Kept bouncing back and forth between my personal life and the national news. OK, mostly my personal life. Mostly, but not completely.
Can you trust someone who reacts in anger when caught in a lie? Can you trust someone who lies without remorse? Someone who dismisses lies by claiming that the subject in question isn’t any of your business, anyway, so why should it matter?
I can still see her expression, one of extreme annoyance, unable to make eye contact with me, brow furrowed, spitting out her words, angrily stabbing at the food on her plate. Then a blank expression, a mask covering it all up, as she regained control of herself and tried to deflect the conversation away from the subject at hand. When I brought the topic back up, her defenses came up and she turned it into an attack on me, trying to make me think that I should feel guilty for calling her on her untruthful behavior. Her charm, her manner and way of speaking… almost convince me, in the moment, that it’s not something I should have brought up.
Then I remember that the topic at hand is, in fact, trust. Can I trust this creature on any topic, if I know she is quite willing to hide the facts from me?
Why would she lie, in any case, on subjects where it’s easy for me to find out the truth?
Shouldn’t she realize that it’s just as bad to lie to someone else, if I know about it? That doesn’t make her more trustworthy, to know that she’s untruthful to someone with whom she claims to have a “committed” relationship. That only undermines her trustworthiness even more.
Lying isn’t a good sign. Lying is not the way one builds any kind of relationship, whether a professional one, a friendship, or a deeper relationship.
I can’t ever forget this.
Quick music news before I go to bed:
Rating system: 0 to 5 stars
I’ll post full reviews this week. Hopefully. Not making promises.
Also, I’m too tired to do the “linking” thing tonight.
Poor Smacky. My kitten, little black fuzzball, is the cutest kitten ever, but his claws are waaaaay too sharp. Not only has he been scratching me when we play, he’s started scratching himself to the point of bleeding. It’s a two-pronged (sorry, couldn’t help myself) problem: first, the claws, of course, and second, he’s gotten fleas. Ewwww. Poor guy. I was finding tiny little clumps of hair from him scratching himself, along with spots of blood, in his recent favorite grooming spot: my bathroom sink. Well, he could have chosen worse places, I guess. I just started noticing in the past couple of days.
So, today, I finally trimmed his nails.
I didn’t want to, because, if you watch him, his claws are his bestest friend. He climbs all over; when he runs he makes this tearing sound as his claws dig into and let go of the carpet; he leaps on to my back when I’m standing near something he can climb up on, causing me to scream in agony… he’s so cute.
So, like I said, I trimmed them up. I had to do it; he was hurting himself. I’m going to bathe him and hit him with some flea powder, but I didn’t want to do it while he still had open wounds. I wanted to give him time to heal a bit first. Wasn’t sure of the effects of poison (the flea powder) in his system. Not to mention soapy water on an open cut; shit, I know what that feels like.
He knew. Immediately, he knew something was wrong. He could feel it. Cats have very subtle facial expressions, at least to a human, but he looked, well, mad. He didn’t try to climb for at least an hour. He would reach out, cautiously, from the coffee table to the couch, and stretch across one leg at a time, where before he would just jump and trust his razor-sharp claws to catch hold. I couldn’t get him to jump up on his cat condo. I felt guilty and kept assuring him that I did it for his own good. I gave him a treat. I petted him and combed through his fur for fleas. I went out and bought him a new catnip mouse and a little electronic thing that’s motion- and sound-activated. But, no. He seems kind of… well… depressed.
But at least he doesn’t make those whimpering noises when he scratches himself anymore.
Poor Smacky.
I’ll have some pictures of him either later tonight or tomorrow. Stay tuned.
Plato wrote about his utopian society and called it “Plato’s Republic”.
On a road trip years ago, my friend Caleb attempted to describe his dream society and we called it “Caleb’s Republic”.
With all the political activity lately, tensions heating up, I’ve turned some thought to my dream society and will be working on describing “Brian’s Republic”.
Just some quick notes, to bookmark the idea for myself later. These are woefully incomplete and probably naive, but, hey, ya gotta dream, right?
There’s more I want to write about… but another time. One problem I’m having is trying to find a line between protection of common resources and preventing government from restricting the rights of property owners.
Quick note: on my run in to work today, I kept track of my split times, and was running pretty fast during the first 2-3 miles of it; first mile and a half was between 8:00 and 8:30 per mile! Whoo-HOO!
‘Course, I couldn’t maintain that pace for the whole 5.14 miles, but I did end up with a total time this morning of 48:23.41! If that’s not my best time for that distance it’s damned close. Go see for yourself.
I couldn’t believe my ears. I have to find a transcript of the actual interview to make certain that I didn’t mis-hear it.
Last night I was in the locker room of my gym, after a run, after a shower, and on the teevee they were playing the Dennis Miller show on CNBC. It was apparently a re-run, since the banner across the bottom of the screen showed “Republican National Convention 2004”. And Miller was interviewing the senior Bush, George Herbert Walker Bush.
The conversation turned to World War II, and Bush was talking about getting shot down over the Pacific, and I kinda tuned out for a minute while I was getting dressed. Miller made some remark about WWII being “a different kind of war” and must have said something about Hitler being evil, or a bad guy, or something negative…
And Bush… Bush laughed, and chided Miller for not being “politically correct.” Bush defended Hitler! He said, “Hey, c’mon now, Adolf was a good guy! He liked dogs!”
…whaaaaaaaaat? Did I just hear a former President of the United States of America claim, even as a joke, that Adolf Hitler was a good guy because he liked dogs?
This is like one of those “jokes” that Rush Limbaugh makes to tweak the Democrats, right? Where he shoots off his mouth about killing all the liberals, then if someone calls him on it he claims it’s all meant in humor… right? The kind of “joke” that reveals a hidden intention?
I guess that’s why they call it “pseudo-fascism” — they can claim they’re just funnin’ ya (see Part 4 of David Neiwert’s series on “The Rise of Pseudo Fascism”)
Those wacky Republicans! Damn, they’re clever little guys! They’re like little cute kittens, all tangled up in an unstrung ball of yarn, or playfully shredding the curtains while running around at 2 AM, or whimsically pissing all over the rights and enfranchisement of thousands of Democratic voters who are attempting to register for what might just be the last free presidential election in America.
Look at the silly Republicans!
No. Really. Look at them.
We need to rub their nose in it and make sure it doesn’t keep happening.
(Cross-posted from Geeks Against Bush)
One of my guilty pleasures is reading advice columns. I’m sure I must have mentioned this before… at any rate, one of my favorites is Cary Tennis, over at Salon. He’s very good at sorting out what’s important and what’s not, and dealing with the human story and how it goes. Some of that might be due to his being a novelist. Dunno. I can’t wait for his first actual novel.
At any rate, sometimes, rarely, he addresses his audience directly, and the column dated 10/13/2004 is one of those times. He says, in part,
…I have been getting letters asking “How do you know when it’s time to leave the country?” and I can only say yes, it does feel a little fascist in here, could someone please open a window, please? Should you leave the country? Well, yes, you probably should. And so should I. But you probably won’t, and neither will I. Booking passage is such a hassle. And the queen has her spies everywhere.
The rest of his columns can be found here (you’ll need either a paid subscription or a day pass to read them).
I think I like “internets” better than “IntarWeb”.