Sweetheart saying her final "Goodbye" to Hannity, the horniest dog in Ocean Shores, Washington--and beyond!

Needless to say, Sweetie is the pooch on the right. Her "boy friend" on the left--from the street behind ours--is named "Hannity" after some TV personality.

Eat your heart out, Gem!

But since you asked (Gem), it's getting close for her to be on your side of the country--somewhere near Silver Spring, MD. Thanks to Pet-Air and a lightening streak around town today (me!), we have her weighed and measured (23 lbs, 12" high and 24" long) for optimum selection of the proper sized kennel--indeed, the PetMate kennel-carrier ($105) is awaiting only for me to pick it up at the feed store in Aberdeen tomorrow morning before the math class. She (Sweetie) will be getting her shots (again!) on Friday before I attend another of those &%$#@ mandatory unemployment classes (this one is called "Dressing for your Interview" and only lasts two hours), and a thorough vet-check-up for her interstate health certificate (the vet said the "Shebang"--her word, not mine--would be only $125).

Tonight, I'll be making the Pet-Air (what airlines, God only knows) reservations and providing the HTML form for her carrier labels and dog tags. I'm kinda hoping I'll be able to make the seven or eight hour round trip on the Friday following her check-up.

Only hitch is that the health papers come with a ten-day fuse. If she doesn't fly out by Friday-plus-ten-days, it will be another $125. I may try to get the vet to give her a flex-time appointment sometime next week.

But then, what's money?

She is sleeping well, but knows something is up and misses Richard dreadfully. She sleeps under my covers (ugh!) but does bark to be walked and such. Midnight walks out here in the middle of nowhere are something you have to see (pitch black) and feel (brrr ...) to appreciate. At least during the early morning or after-classes hours, I can tell when she goes #1 or #2 or both. A typical walk takes half an hour and we scare dozens of deer and raccoons in the process. I wish I had a night vision camera.

My students are beginning to make noises when I rush into one class or the other three minutes late, but I thought it best not to let them knowing I'm having problems at home. My handwriting on their papers (grading comments) have some of them suspicious and one guy thought he saw me going into the unemployment office last week. Of course, I still have to make those three "WorkSource Contacts" each week for the unemployment to resume at the end of the quarter in December--if I'm not contracted for the Winter Quarter.

As for Richard, he only called once but sounded GREAT! It was a short call last Thursday--short because he has to get into line--although we did talk for almost ten minutes because he was last in line for a while anyway. Just as Sweetie misses him, he also misses her VERY MUCH!

You see, Gem, being human ain't all it's cracked up to be. Hopefully, Pet-Air will get her a weekend flight so I won't have to cancel classes for one day.

Whoops! To insure that weather or other such calamity doesn't shoot that seven day fuse with a water pistol, I will be taking Sweetheart in for her final check-up at 8:45 am next Wednesday (Oct 7) and Sweetheart will "technically" be my animule until she is on the airplane. The picture on my drivers licence doesn't look nearly so handsome and young as Richard--the real owner and lover of the sweetest dog in Ocean Shores--although with bad taste in boy friends (Hannity).

Hopefully, I'll have the labels and reservations in the mail (or however) from Pet-Air in time. Prayers will help.

But as they say in AA: "One Day at a Time!"

Shakespeare couldn't have said it better than this picture. Let's get the %$#&@ out of Afghanistan ... NOW!!!

Almost exactly forty years ago, I landed at Tan Son Nhut Air Base … and somehow am feeling déjà vu just about every time I turn on CNN, Fox Cable or MSNBC. Does anyone still around recall the insanity of Vietnam? I finally heard someone on some “All-American” panel on one of the mindless Fox Cable talking head shows bring up the obvious similarity that seems to elude what’s between the ears of most political party hacks (Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, whoever …) and even some of our military leaders who should know better.

{roughly recalled)"Historians agree that Vietnam shouldn't have happened and someone should have reined in McNamara before he led our military and country into the rice paddies and atrocities such as Mi Lai. By the time Rumsfeld had gotten us knee deep in the quicksand (both in Iraq and Afghanistan) and equally terrible atrocities--before he was finally canned by GWB--it was too late."

As I recall, Bill O'Reilly cut him off short at about that point.

We seem to be in it for the long haul—Barack H. Obama and George W. Bush have more in common than it might appear at first glance.

Consider some facts—plagiarized from The Times Standard website.

1. There are men and women in our military who remember helping the Taliban fight the Russians during their decade-long occupation of Afghanistan. We looked upon the Taliban as nationalists back then, people fighting for their freedom.
2. To prove we haven't learned our history lesson, we invaded Afghanistan and chased the Taliban out, calling them terrorists. They let our enemy Osama Bin Laden and his Al Qa'eda terrorists train there. Our politicians needed some measure of revenge for the 9/11 attack to show Americans, and the world, that we would not tolerate international terrorists.
3. So we invaded Afghanistan and put in a puppet ruler, President Hamid Karzai. Just like in Vietnam. We continued this insanity in Afghanistan by trying to westernize them. Just like Vietnam.
4. Afghanistan is a country dominated by tribal and ethnic loyalties -- and torn apart from years of civil war. Our presence there causes more harm than good. The Bush administration's strategic doctrine was to take over the country and make sure Al Qa'eda didn't have a place of safety. But for how long?
5. The Bush administration also invaded Iraq under false pretenses to get rid of a tyrant to whom we once sent money and arms. Our troops are supposed to be out of Iraq in a couple of years. It's still not entirely clear if the Iraqis want to wait that long.
6. President Obama has made Afghanistan the Pentagon's No. 1 priority since we lost a record number of troops in August. This was an obvious sign things are heating up. Now there's talk of sending even more troops into this quagmire. Earlier this year, Obama ordered 21,000 troops to go there, which will bring the total U.S. forces to 68,000 by the end of this year.

The same web-author recently said that “the U.S. and NATO should study Afghanistan's history." Whoever that author was also reminded his readers that "nations have been trying to conquer this country since Alexander the Great tried ... and failed." (emphasis mine)

It's time to get out of that country before we sink any deeper into the quagmire. Al Qa'eda has been fighting from the Pakistan side of the Afghan border for years. Are we planning to attack Pakistan next?

Hellfire, I remember when Osama bin Laden was receiving dialysis treatments just one wing of the hospital in Dubai from where we were holding our AA meetings. I wonder when we’ll target the American Hospital in Dubai (AHD) with one of our Predator drones … I think Osama was in the wing next to the OB ward.

That's how some Right Wing idiots define Christianity, unfortunately.

Then again, surely we won't go to war with the United Arab Emirates and messy-up those great greens and sand traps in Tiger Woods' super new golf course, will we? Uhhh ... I wouldn't bet on anything these days.

How many Americans must die in combat and how many countries must we attack before the “9-11 debt” is paid-in-full? Screwy arithmetic me thinks, now that more than 4,000 GIs have perished as “payment” for the 3,000 civilians those bastards killed eight years ago.

Is it too early to be getting our minds off of the drama in Ocean Shores (from the past two weeks)?

Hey, they were already giving odds on Mike Huckabee for 2012 on Fox News last night. Whatcha think?

Better than my long tomes on cleaning kitty litters, dog walking (new activity as of last week) and Grays Harbor College starting classes--including one of the ones I'll be teaching (TODAY!).

Prayers still requested relative to previous few postings here and on Sweetheart's blog.

Dark Days for Sweetheart (You can call her Sweetie!)

Sweetheart wants her Best Friend, Richard, back home!

What we are all asking for are your prayers for Richard's good health and all of your best wishes wrapped in "Stinky Treats.". And oh yes, Sweetie promises to restart her marvelous blog as soon as Richard shows up at the front door ... smiling and well.

My brother Richard becomes an officialy designated GLF ("Ground Level Fall" on the ER Status Board) at Grays Harbor Community Hospital

Yes, the "C-Collar" was really Army Green! But Richard asked that I take down the very accurate portrait that I put up for him on Sunday.

Not much to add to the above photo; they had already wiped most of the blood off his face and I was holding his flattened (also bloody) glasses. I'll let Sweetheart (Richard's Benji-looking dog whom God provided him out of nowhere last October) tell the whole story on a blog posting in her own words (baleful whines) on her own blog site.

Yes, I cried when I saw his prone body lying on the street two doors down with most of Ocean Shores' police, EMT and fire department already either on-site or just arriving--along with neighbors whom I've never met.

That was Saturday evening and he's slowly recovering up in the loft with his beloved (TRULY!!) dog. Jesus answered many, many prayers on Saturday night and Sunday (middle of the night) morning.