Tag Archives: poison

Gnawing my fingertips


images-10My nails are long since gone…..

I’ve been dreading this election Tuesday for months. I live in Canada and thus can only watch, horrified, as a rude, lying, idiotic man bullies his way through towards President, making all of his policies (if any) sound like “I know I am and so are you” schoolyard yells. Or whenever he is told of his past behaviour, he just bully-cartoon-2015-1denies it, like we don’t have a film record. It’s bizarre.

But some people do think he’d make a good president, I hear. Migods. Surely the American people can’t think that someone who makes money off of ripping others off is a success story? Or an accused rapist and admitted assaulter is good to send out into the world as their spokesperson?

But then I remember the American dream. The one that was sung to me when I lived there. The off-key tune that: everyone makes their own success; losers deserve it; and if you win, God’s on your side. It is a horrible, selfish dream, the kind of one you suck on like a thumb when you are curled up in the da51uphka8al-_sx319_bo1204203200_rk, chewing over some hurt. It is a gray-green dream, the colour of jealousy and pride, two of those deadly sins we hear about now and then. And it’s a white person’s dream, a white man’s dream. Everyone else knows that, sometimes, no matter how hard you pull on those bootstraps, you may not “make it”. You may not be rich or famous, which appears to be the only goal worth having. Well, that and heaven.

If you choose to avoid wealth, you are obviously sick. Good people are those that make millions and then dole it out in dribs and drabs. They are applauded, while those that suffered at minimum wage and long hours and poverty gaze up in adoration, forgetting the whip…

58660647And what of those very religious? I have a family member who believes that if God loves you, He (it is a male God, of course) will make you rich. My family member isn’t rich. How horrifying that must be, to think that therefore God must not like you. How damning. How angry it must make you at those you see as less deserving who are wealthier than you. Surely they cheated somehow, or were given the job because of special interests. It can’t be that YOU are not competent or prepared or the right fit. No never, because God loves you and so you are perfect.

It breaks my heart.

I’m also watching the races for the Senate. I have an irrational desire for a Democratic sweep – irrational because of the millions spent to prevent such a thing. I hear the GOP saying they will block everything if they get in and Ms. C wins. Childish and horrible. A waste of the taxpayer’s money they seek to protect. Or so they say.

It amazes me that President Obama was able to accomplish what he did, despite the racist rants and rebellion of the right. It sorrows me that he wasn’t able to accomplish a lot more. It enrages me that the block is by conservative men who want to control women’s bodies by preventing liberal appointees to the Supreme Court. Suspend Roe v. Wade, they cry, because life is precious. Until, that is, it is born, and then we can starve it, shoot it, beat it into submission…

But pgodzilla_zpsag7wurjbrimarily, I’m gnawing my fingertips because of the violence validated by the media and one candidate in this race. I worry for friends and relatives and everyone else too, if the situation flares out of control. Everyone seems to be packing a gun south of the border, and tempers are frayed. I’m hoping that people won’t go rioting or marshall up the militias because, somehow, having an uncivilized monster run for President has made it even more okay to attack those weaker than you. Or different from you. Or those who “took your job.”

But if they do, the media will be there, licking its hungry lips, making media darlings out of the worst of the worst. They should be ashamed.

The US has been fighting the “war on terror” for years, yet hasn’t trimmed the roots of terrorism within its own borders. I pray that poisonous tree will not blossom tonight.

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Ah, the benefits of cuteness…


A long time in a youth far away, I discovered (boom boom boom boom) – Cutepower! Awesomeness. If I turned my head just so, flashed my eyes like that, smiled, well, my cheekbones would do the rest and I could have my way with pretty well anyone. (My family has good cheekbones. Many people comment on Imageit. Really. They do.)

Then I grew breasts. And I found out that a critical part of that cuteness factor was to add a thrust up set of them. People gave me credit for my ideas, they listened to me speak, they held out chairs for me, with only the addition of a push-up bra and maybe some lipstick to the cheekbone assemblage.

Now of course, I’m older, rounder, greyer. Used to dye my hair, too lazy now. Hate the feeling of lipstick on my lips but apply it every once and awhile, still do the magic lift up bras when needed. Still try the eye/cheekbone thing. I have to.

Because, once your cute is gone, well, it’s all downhill from there.

Look at baby seals. More abundant than the fish they eat, we daren’t pluck them off the ice floes solely because of their big brown watery sad eyes. They are overbreeding. They are starving people and fish and other animals. No matter. They’re CUTE.

ImageI read today in the CH that in Canmore, Alberta, the rabbits have become a pestilence. They have been wildly reproducing since the 1990’s and apparently there’s one for every 6 Canmorians. Kill them? No way. They’re CUTE. So they’ve been taken into animal sanctuaries (where no doubt they’ve been adopted and then escaped to breed again) until there was no more room for them, and now the animal control people are visibly shrinking from euthanizing them.

Meanwhile, arguably less cute rats have taken over the Galapagos. 180 million of them, in fact. Now I like rats, sort of. My daughter had one as a pet and she was sweet. Little Aretha, we called her, black as Aretha Franklin, with white jazz paws. My daughter was big on Aretha Franklin at the time, so it was meant as homage. (Our babysitter Sarah thought it was homage that they named a hamster after her, too, until it turned out the hamster was pregnant and gave birth and then ate her babies) Rats make great, smart, trainable pets and if you’re really good you can do a Willard thing and take over the world.

Which is apparently what happened on the Galapagos. Even I have to admit that 180 million rats dothImage make my skin crawl. So, rather than letting life forces deal with it, did the scientists rehouse the little nippers? Did they take them to a rat sanctuary, run adoption campaigns, set them up for life?

Nope.

They are dive bombing the island with rat poison.

After they clear off the cuter animals, that is. And the iguanas. (Sorry, not cute). Then, presumably, some poor environmental engineering intern is going to have to go there and pick up the tons of rat bodies. I’ll just bet they won’t pick the CUTE intern to do that job. Nah, they’ll pick the intern they don’t like because she has a squinty eye or frizzy hair or he’s heavyset or something.

Dime will get you dollars the intern won’t be blonde. Or have nice cheekbones. But I digress.

But you see the difference? Have a fluffy tail and floppy ears and you get cherished until you eat everyone out of house and home. Have little ears, a hairless tail, and the cleverness of a rat, and they’ll kill you right as rain. But these are both rodents, people. Of the same branch of the biological tree.

They even are on par for disease carrying potential, and a lot of folks are allergic to rabbits. One could argue it’s better to kill the bunnies because they can be made into stews that are acceptable to eat in many countries, unlike rat stew, which only appears on Fear Factor.

Its just plain animal hypocrisy, that’s what it is,

And as someone whose cuteness is waning, it makes me pretty darn nervous.

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