Category: politics, culture, society

I follow several sentators…from states other than Idaho, including Bernie Sanders of Vermont.  (Why I choose to follow and support U. S. Senators other than those of Idaho is because all Idaho US Senators in firmly entrenched on the opposite sides of issues I find salient. In fact, there isn’t a whole lot of people in office in Idaho whom I do support, especially not Butch “the Butcher” Otter, but let’s not go there.  None of us need a rant from me this morning.)

Here’s the latest from Bernie Sanders of Vermont, and, if you want more interesting listening and reading, then go to his website at:  http://www.sanders.senate.gov/

VIDEO: The Buzz on Capitol Hill with Senator Bernie Sanders

Here’s the direct link to the video: http://sanders.senate.gov/video/20090312003/index.html

I got a call last Thursday:  “My sow’s going to farrow, but I already had plans to go to Kalispell for three days.  Can you come sit with her?”

I blinked about five times, just speechless.  “Huh? Who is this?” I asked.

He told me.  It was the guy whose wife had called my Mom not four months ago because a baby pig needed help.  My mom had, of course, called me, and, reluctantly, I’d driven us all the way up this long, winding road to go rescue the creature who was crushed, starving, and suffering hypothermia.  That’s how Mom got “Lucky,” no pun intended, but a good pun all the same.

I’d told the husband then what I told him now once my brain connected to my mouth.  “If you’re going to raise pigs, you sit there with that sow while she farrows, and you sit there three days more.  Then you keep a wary ear out for another three weeks in case you hear a piglet scream its fool head off because Mom laid on him and isn’t getting up.”  

And, if you want to raise pigs, that’s what you do, whether you farrow them in crates or you, preferably, pen farrow. 

“Well, I thought that you said that, if I had trouble to call you,” he came back.

I’m thinking to myself, This isn’t ‘trouble’.  This isn’t a stuck pig, a prolapsed uterus, or anything dire.  This is you wanting to go gad-about, and your sow is farrowing at an inconvenient moment.  You didn’t think ahead, and now you want somebody to pig-sit while you go to some play-date. What I said was, “I’m sorry.  I’m totally buried in work.  I can’t help you.  But, you know, if you have pigs, you are obligated to be there when they farrow.  It’s part of the contract.”

Later, I found out that good old “boyo” went off on his weekend, anyway, the selfish asshole.  What was the big ‘date’? He had a pool tournament over in Montana.  Had to go suck down brewsky and rack ’em up, you know, or the world just wouldn’t be right.  

Bullshit.

If this person ever has the audacity to call me again, I think I’ll tear him a new one, and, believe me, I’m capable. People like this should NOT have animals.  None.  Not ever.

I hope one day, if he has a daughter or granddaughter, when she goes into labor and everybody is expecting the obstetrician to attend, that, when the call comes, old doc says, “Oh, sorry.  Timing’s off.  I’ve got a pool tournament over at Jug’s Bar.  She’ll have to fend for herself.”

I get a lot of requests from folks who want to “make a go of it” on their own.  And I can do that.  I do it well.  But.  Providing the means doesn’t provide the self-incentive needed to achieve the desired goals.  Providing the means can’t provide the motivation to do the work needed to succeed.  Providing the means only creates the tools and functions necessary to get there if someone is willing to apply themselves and do the work.

Reality? Most people want you to do it for them while they, doing nothing, reap the benefits.  I don’t sanction that kind of attitude or that kind of behavior.  I certainly won’t enable it.

When the public education system goes out of its way to indoctrinate our young children, promoting McDonald’s and Burger King in songs and ditties to Kindergartners, when junk food laden with sugar, produced by Beatrice under all its various labels is proliferated as healthy in school classrooms, hallways and cafeterias, promoted as good eating by teachers, one really must wonder. Where have I witnessed this from firsthand experience?  A mom whose child was enrolled at Washington School, Sandpoint, Idaho, that child since removed from said school and placed into the Idaho Virtual Academy instead, which is proving itself first-rate as a good, solid education, and not promoting corporate interests and the dumbing down of our children that is now rampant throughout the public school system in the US.

Whether it is photograph of a model, an actor or actress, or a lawyer defending a high profile client, increasingly it is very difficult to tell if the person portrayed in the picture is real, a plastic model, or a cgi (a computer generated image).

This is NOT just due to cgi getting more life-like, but, rather of life becoming a mimic of cgi — the make-up, hair, and physique mimicking computer generated imaging.  They’ve met in the middle, and that, for me, is very disturbing, not because of the inherent implications for fraud as much as because it sets up a very false standard for people as a role model for success.

A lot of it is due to lighting, but it also has to do with skin and bodies enhanced all over, not just the face, by make-up and surgery, well-coiffed and well-dyed hair, impeccable manicures and the like.

Check out these images and tell me which ones are real people, which are plastic, and which are CGI (computer generated):

 

Without cheating, even if you recognize them, which look REAL, PLASTIC, OR CGI?

1	Real	Plastic	CGI
2	Real	Plastic	CGI
3	Real	Plastic	CGI
4	Real	Plastic	CGI
5	Real	Plastic	CGI
6	Real	Plastic	CGI
7	Real	Plastic	CGI
8	Real	Plastic	CGI
9	Real	Plastic	CGI
10	Real	Plastic	CGI

Now, check your answers.

3, 5, and 10 are CGI.

All the rest are real EXCEPT #2 which is a plastic, life-sized clothes mannequin.

How did you do?

What do you think about this trend and its significance?