Maybe we should get Henry a better dog bed by the front window than a cardboard box lid.
Danger
I have an opinion about the NFL protests. I’m having flashbacks to “Love it or Leave it”. I thought that slogan had been left behind in the sixties, but now I’m hearing the same sentiment expressed as “If you don’t like our flag or country just get out.” (If you haven’t heard that, just scroll through a few Facebook posts and then you will have.) This is an awesome country, but we should recognize that it’s not the same for everyone. The NFL players aren’t protesting our flag, our soldiers, or our national anthem. They’re protesting apparent unequal treatment by law enforcement and court decisions. They’ve never said it’s about anything else. All that noise is other people trying to deflect the message into something they’d rather defend. It doesn’t even matter if the protesters’ perception of unequal treatment is right or wrong, their concern and comment is constitutional. The first amendment to our constitution guarantees: “ … freedom of expression by prohibiting Congress from restricting the press or the rights of individuals to speak freely. It also guarantees the right of citizens to assemble peaceably and to petition their government.” If it makes us uncomfortable that NFL players choose to protest during the national anthem, that’s probably a good thing. I don’t think protests are supposed to make us comfortable. If we need a slogan to get through this, let’s recycle an old one with a slight revision. How about Love it and leave it even better than you found it!
Remember
Remember when the kids were little, and you could sit in one place and track them through the house just by listening. Every time they picked up something they weren’t supposed to, they’d say “No.” out loud. It’s kind of like that with Judy, except she’s saying “Ow.” out loud. We drove to Corpus and got her cast off today. She says it hurts a lot less already without the cast pressing against the wounds. She’s saying “Ow.” less, so she’s a little harder to track now. First thing she wanted to do at the doctor’s office was get her left hand under water and wash it.
It hasn’t been wet for weeks. Next thing when we got home was to take a shower without one arm in a plastic bag!
It hasn’t been wet for weeks. Next thing when we got home was to take a shower without one arm in a plastic bag! Man with a camera
I sent my camera in for service so I’ve been without it for a couple weeks. It was good to get it back and shoot some random pictures. We’ve got neotropic cormorant.
A couple egrets, great and snowy.
And a loggerhead shrike.
A couple egrets, great and snowy. And a loggerhead shrike. I listened to an interview
It was with a 47 year-old man. He said “I couldn’t join the military and fight for my country when I was 15. I wasn’t mature enough. I couldn’t vote. They said my brain wasn’t fully formed. I couldn’t buy a drink or even a pack of cigarettes yet. I wasn’t old enough to be responsible. But when I was 15 I made a terrible decision and killed another person. I was tried as an adult and sentenced to spend the rest of my life in prison. I understand that taking a person’s life is a horrible thing to do, but how is it that for every other thing I might have done when I was 15 I was not old enough to be responsible, but for that one thing, I am held responsible for the rest of my life?” End quote. This is me talking again. I’m not in favor of the death penalty; I just have a logic problem with it. “It’s so wrong to kill someone that we’re going to kill you if you do it.” That doesn’t resonate for me. I prefer something along the lines of putting the killer in jail for as long as the victim remains dead. This however, is a different spin. The thought of putting a person in prison for life for a decision they made when they were 15? That’s tough.