Halo

Ragdoll cats are supposed to be one of the more docile feline breeds around. They are named Ragdoll, in part, because of the way they go limp in your arms when you pick them up. Limp like a child's ragdoll.

And that's what we were looking for when we got Halo.

We'd had a Ragdoll before. Years ago, Dolittle gave us infinite hours of love, joy and amusement. When Dolittle was a kitten, she actually jumped up on the bed and slept on the top of Kim's head. Repeatedly. That's what Ragdolls do.

So when Dolittle died, we debated whether or not we wanted another cat. It wasn't a decision we made lightly. I was already 64 years old – Kim was 55 – and we were pretty sure we didn't want any future pets to outlive us. But we took a chance and picked up Halo from the same Ragdoll cattery in Salisbury where we got Dolittle.

She was extremely cute, as kittens are. She was a Blue Mitted Ragdoll and she had those signature blue eyes, but she also had a white blaze on her forehead and nose. That was all it took and we brought her home.

We even named her Halo, not only because she looked kind of cherubic, but we also looked forward to her angelic Ragdoll personality to kick in.

And we waited. And waited. And waited.

Turns out, Halo never read the Ragdoll manual. While most Ragdolls by trait are laid back, apparently about 10 percent or so are not. They exhibit contrary or antisocial behavior.

Lucky us. We got the 10 percent.

Halo was OK with us, but probably moreso with me than with Kim. Since I was retired, I was the one who was home most of the time. She'd follow me around the house, let me stroke her cotton-like fur, fuss when she needed her litter box cleaned. Kim was just a visitor who showed up to put kibbles in the food dish and tell her how pretty she was.

In truth, she was tolerant of Kim, often times swiping at her feet or complaining when Kim would pick her up to hold her. We actually timed Halo – you could hold her for exactly 30 seconds before she would squirm to be put back down on the floor. She would not sit on your lap or by your side. If she hopped on the bed, she slept by your feet, not on your head.

She would squaw at visitors. She would show them her claws as if they were switchblades. She would tell them where to go. She was, as Kim said, opinionated.

And yet...

As the years passed, we grew accustomed to her behavior, taking solace in the fact that nobody else likely would put up with her, and that she was lucky to have a home with us.

But a few months ago, she was diagnosed with arthritis even though she was just nine years old. She started peeing outside the litter box because it was difficult for her to step in. Visits to the veterinarian temporarily alleviated some of her issues, but they weren't going to go away. She would require more visits.

Today her bloodwork revealed 100 percent renal failure and her dramatic weight loss – from 15 pounds to just 6 in a matter of months – suggested possible lymphoma as well. Even her vet, Dr. Salli Steward – who last saw Halo in May – was taken aback by her rapid slide. There was no turning back.

So we made the difficult decision that nearly every responsible pet owner makes sooner or later, because, you know, nothing lasts forever.

Dr. Steward hooked up the IV catheterization port. We laid her down and I put the palm of my hand over Halo's head – over her blaze – which she always liked. It was her safe spot and I could always feel her pushing back in appreciation, just as she did this one last time. Then Dr. Steward introduced the Euthasol and Halo peacefully slipped into another dimension.

Halo was lucky to have us?

She was feisty. She was loyal. She was beautiful. We were lucky to have Halo.

 

What's with these guys?

Do Republicans have any decency at all?

I can understand political attacks directed at an opponent to make him look weak, uninformed and not part of the main stream, but geez, when you go after the neurodivergent child of a candidate, well, that gets pretty low.

That's what happened the other night when vice presidential candidate Tim Walz was speaking about his family during the acceptance speech at the Democracic National Convention. Walz's 17-year-old son, Gus, erupted into tears of joy and the national TV audience saw him point to his father on the stage while mouthing the words, "That's my dad!"

Most viewers saw Gus's display of love and tears as endearing.

But not all.

"Now that's weird," posted conservative columnist and lightening rod Ann Coulter on Elon Musk's social platform X almost as soon as Walz was done leaping for joy. And, apparently, she wasn't the only one.

Souless.

It seems that conservative males become emasculated when they shed tears of joy (or pain, or grief, or heartache), according to recent Republican canon for manhood.

Coulter took down her post when she learned that Gus had learning disabilities, but not without claiming – and I paraphrase here – "well, the Democrats called Republicans weird first." Which totally misses the point in addition to sounding childish.

This episode reminds me of the time when convicted felon Donald Trump, who is the Republican candidate for president and is seeking a second term, mocked severely disabled New York Times journalist Serge Kovaleski, who suffers from a congenital joint condition.

That was during Trump's first campaign back in 2015, but it apparently opened the doors for sheer, thoughtless meaness to sweep across the country. We see the results to this day. If a presidential candidate can do that, why can't the rest of us?

In a similar but different vein, Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan accused the Dems of stealing Republican values during their convention this past week. Values like faith and patriotism.

Say what?

I generally respect Noonan's opinion on most things, but she missed the boat on this. Those aren't Republican values. They're American values. As David Corn, the Washington DC bureau chief for Mother Jones responded, "Stole? No one has an exclusive claim to patriotism." 

C'mon, Peggy. Be better than that.

C'mon, Republicans. Be better than that.

All of us need to be better than that.

Are you better off?

Every now and then, when I'm perusing Facebook these days, somebody inevitably posts – usually a Republican – President Ronald Reagan's now-famous question to voters: "Are you better off now than you were four years ago?"

The question has become nearly iconic during every election season. It doesn't matter who's running for office, or which party they represent. It's a many-faceted question that almost always demands a response. It's a dig, it's accusatory, it's penetrating, it's superficial, it can be rhetorical and it can be literal at the same time. It's not avoidable.

I've thought about this a little bit. My own question is why are some people asking this now?

But let's take a look.

Four years ago was August 2020. The now-34-time convicted felon and adjudicated rapist Donald Trump was the president and he was running for a second term. And he was drowning in Covid-19, which, by that point, had claimed the lives of at least 350,000 Americans in a pandemic he totally mishandled. He asked if we could maybe inject bleach. And some people did. Thank you, Dr. Trump.

I think there's been a collective amnesia that has conveniently (for Trump, at least) blocked out the temporary morgues that sprang up, complete with refrigeration trucks, outside of hospitals as people died on their ventilators. Well, if they could get a ventilator in the first place. It was real carnage, not the kind you make up for an inauguration speech.

To his credit, Trump did bring us Operation Warp Speed, which gave us a Covid vaccination when we needed it most, and in record time. But then, paradoxically, he downplayed the vaccination, creating anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers. People died, predominantly cultist Trump Republicans. Trump even came down with Covid himself and required life-saving efforts from a medical team at Walter Reed Hospital.

So there's that. Covid. It set the stage for what would follow. The unemployment rate rose to 15 percent. The supply chain was in its initial stages of breakdown. Inflation was low, 1.9 percent or something like that early on, but the worldwide pandemic would jack that up to nearly 10 percent by the time Joe Biden took office.

The economy was strong under Trump (which he inherited from President Obama), but then Covid came on big time in March of that year and suddenly, both the job and stock markets cratered. Guess who stood by and played golf? Thank you, Prof. Trump.

All of this chaos was handed over to Biden, who had exactly one day – his Inauguration – to enjoy as his honeymoon period. But working with a severely divided Congress, Biden has created more jobs – about 15 million – than any one-term president. The inflation rate has dropped to 2.9 percent as wages rise.  The unemployment rate has fallen to about 4 percent. A couple weeks ago some high-profile hostages were released from Russia, and this week, the administration announced it has renegotiated lowering prescription drug prices with Big Pharma. I'll be able to afford my Eliquis in a year. Border crossings are so low that Texas Governor Greg Abbott doesn't have any illegals to ship off to Northern sanctuary cities anymore. 

Crime is down. Well, except for Trump crime. Why is this guy still the Republican candidate?

My 401k has never been better. Has yours?

So the next time somebody asks if I'm better off than I was four years ago, the answer is a resounding Hell yeah! Vote blue.

Building Walz

There's at least two things Republicans should never do during campaign season (or ever, for that matter): they should never accuse their opponents of lying, and they should never make an issue of the southern border.

The lying part is easy to discuss. When former President and convicted felon Donald Trump was in office, he let loose with approximately 30,500 documented lies, with the bulk of them – about 15,000 – coming in the final year of his presidency, according to The Washington Post.

So any accusations of political opponents lying for gain only adds to the considerable pantheon of Republican hypocrisy. Go ahead and lie and see how well that expands your tent. You are, after all, the party of the Big Lie.

The lying issue came to my attention after vice presidential candidate Senator JD Vance, in his self-righteous indignation, said his opponent, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, lied about Walz' military service when Walz said in a 2018 video that he carried a gun into combat. Vance also argues that Walz retired just in time to avoid his unit's deployment to Iraq, insinuating cowardice as well as disloyalty to his men.

Let's back up a minute. Walz is a 24-year veteran of the National Guard who achieved the rank of command sergeant major, the highest rank an enlisted man can reach. He was deployed twice in those 24 years – once to Norway above the Arctic Circle, and another time to Italy in 2003 while backfilling troops who were headed to Afghanistan.

Vance is also a veteran. He enlisted in the Marines after high school and was subsequently deployed to Iraq. Apparently, that's enough for Vance to jump on Walz' case since Vance was actually in a war zone. He asks Walz "what gun did you carry into combat?"

What Vance doesn't say much about is that during his tenure in Iraq, he was was a correspondent armed with a keyboard and where he quickly skyrocketed to the rank of corporal before serving out his enlistment. Technically, by virtue of rank, Vance should be saluting Walz, not denigrating him.

Additionally, Walz – who served with an artillery unit and consequently suffered hearing loss – retired after 24 years as a Guardsman. In January 2005, after much consideration, he filed a statement of his candidacy with the Federal Election Commission to run for Congress, so his decision to retire was already known. By May of that year, he officially retired, and in July, his unit received it's mobilization alert. It's not until 10 months later, in 2006, that his unit is actually in the field.

By this time, Walz would be 41 years old with a hearing impediment. I'm not sure that's who the military wants on its front lines.

But I find it beneath any sense of dignity that Vance should attack a fellow veteran for his service. This simply illustrates that the Republican party has shown no sense of dignity or respect anywhere during the Trump years.

I don't think Walz' misstep in the 2018 video was intentional, but even if it was, the Harris campaign has addressed the issue.

“In making the case for why weapons of war should never be on our streets or in our classrooms, the Governor misspoke,” said Harris campaign spokesperson Lauren Hitt. “He did handle weapons of war and believes strongly that only military members trained to carry those deadly weapons should have access to them, unlike Donald Trump and JD Vance who prioritize the gun lobby over our children.” 

That's another blog right there.

As for the border, well, Trump surely had his opportunity to fix things during his presidency. He did build 452 miles of border wall that Mexico did not pay for (the US taxpayer did, at the tune of $15 billion), but his most disgusting legacy is the separation of young children from their families. That was actually administration policy. Nice job fixing the border there.

Now Trump says he wants to build "detention" camps for illegal immigrants. Guess who's going to pay for that?

Even worse, the GOP recently vetoed a strong border security bill authored by Oklahoma Senator James Lankford. They did so because Trump thought the bill, if it passed, would give Democrats the credit and the advantage in the upcoming elections. The bill seemed to be a step in the right direction. If nothing else, it would have been progress to a problem that has plagued several administrations – both Republican and Democrat – for decades.

So now, whenever the GOP attacks Democrats about the border, it's a weak argument with little substance.

Just like most everything else they propose.

Weird

When former president and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump took the stage on Wednesday to answer questions before the National Association of Black Journalists, it kind of surprised me that he wasn't wearing a white robe with a pointed hood.

In one of the most repulsive spectacles of his repugnant career as a politician, Trump insulted, insinuated, implied and incensed an entire culture with elements of his white supremacy.

His tirades began almost before he settled into his chair when he scolded ABC News correspondent Rachel Scott for not being "nice" after she posed her opening question of the event.

What a boor he is. Journalists aren't tasked with being nice. It is their job rather to ask the tough questions – especially of elected officials –  in an effort to seek truth and accountability. Those are two things that Trump repeatedly shows us that he knows nothing about.

After thus setting the tone right from that start of the Q&A for the next 35 minutes, the bottom came fast when he said he didn't know that presumptive Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris was Black (her parents are Jamaican and Asian). 

Ridiculous. Who is he to question how a person identifies herself? So who is he, indeed? He's an adjudicated rapist. He's a 34-times convicted felon awaiting sentencing. He's a fraudster. These are absolute truths, in the way that it's true Harris is Black. So the question is, when will Trump identify himself as a felonious rapist and fraud?

If his appearance before NABJ was meant to clarify his always inarticulate positions for Black voters, I think he instead began shedding votes like a (Donald) duck sheds water. I don't see how this kind of performance (which I thought was intentional) helps his candidacy, either among Blacks or other voting coalitions.

It just highlights his repugnance.

I can only imagine that Trump pooped in his pajamas Friday morning when he learned that 16 prisoners were released from Russia, including Americans Paul Whelan and Evan Gershkovich. Trump once claimed only he could get Gershkovich back home because of his "close" ties with Putin. Trump said he would do that after he won the election in November.

So instead of being gracious and welcoming the prisoners back home, Trump became his truculent self and criticized the entire process, saying he could have done better.

He claimed he could have gotten all the prisoners back home without making concessions in the deals to have them released.

Truth is (there's that word "truth" again), Trump is lying. Imagine that. During his first term as president, three Taliban leaders were exchanged for one American in November 2019. In December 2019, one Iranian prisoner was exchanged for on American. Later, 5000 Taliban prisoners were exchanged for 1,000 prisoners "of the other side" in February 2020. In July 2020, one Iranian prisoner was exchanged for one American. And in October 2020, a total of 250 Houthi rebels were exchanged for two Americans.

That's the Art of the Deal right there.

Weird.