Saturday 18 July 2009

Alone in the Peaceable, except for 16 beasts

Here is a real blog, for a change. Reb is in Paris, France, as opposed to Texas, so I am in charge. Naturally, things have got out of hand and dog Una and cat Murphy both shared my bed last night. Hope Reb doesn't read this.
Yesterday, Esteban brought round a handsome young rooster, or cockerel as a gift. His name may be Max. Time will tell. He seems to have settled down with his harem of 11 chicken girls. I will put his picture on the blog as soon as I find the camera.

On an entirely unrelated topic, I don't understand Facebook - how it works, and what it is supposed to be for - and probably never will. But I have just signed off from an entertaining chat with a lady on it. How many other people have read our exchanges, I have no idea.
The lady in question is, as she says, a proudly patriotic American. She is also clearly a thoroughly decent person. Reading between the lines, and from comments her husband made, I get the idea that they belong to a class of Americans that are regularly handed the shitty end of the stick. I encountered many such in Toledo, Ohio, and Jeannette Pa. Her husband was a soldier, including in Iraq, and is now a cop. Lucky to be still alive, no doubt. So it falls to him and his like to enforce the laws that are specifically designed to keep him and his family firmly in the state of what Thoreau described as 'quiet desperation.' For instance, to protect all the bankers and swindlers and con men that are not actually in jail from being hanged from lamp posts, as they deserve.
All well and good, but what is ironic is that the couple in question (her,at least) are patriotic in the best sense of the word. They truly believe America can do no wrong, despite what they experience daily. They cheerfully feed the hand that bites them.
The Bernie Maddoff´s and Kenneth Lays of that country no doubt laugh at the idea of pride in their country. Remember Leona Helmsley? 'Only the little people pay taxes.'
It is the task of the Army and the Police to keep the oppressors safe from the oppressed.
I am not saying that other countries, like Spain and England for two, don't also cynically exploit the goodwill of many of their citizens. But I strongly suspect that the citizens involved know very well that they are being fed on garbage and don't choke it down cheerfully.
As one of my friends once remarked, 'It´s not that the government wants us to eat dog turds that bothers me. We have come to expect that. No, what´s off-pissing is that the bastards want us to call it chocolate.'

What the heck is this O'Gara guy on about? He sounds like a Commie to me.


None of this probably makes sense to anybody else. But that's what blogs are for.