Cat Strollers??!!!

I chanced upon a catalogue from a feline product company and discovered, much to my... awe/stupefaction, a whole new world I did not know existed. Extendable cat patio and deck (big metal coils you stretch out on to your yard for your cats to stroll and enjoy grass and the scenery), 8-foot tall cat tower/playground toys (for a mere $ 400), CAT STROLLERS (just like babies but covered and with a mesh window for kitty to enjoy the walk...), and other cat carriers (on your belly, just like for newborns...)

I guess I live a dull life, void of imagination and creativity. I thought my cats with their couches and about seven daily naps (different from night time sleep, of course) had it made in the heat and A/C, if not the proverbial shade, and I now discover I have been depriving them of the benefits of progress, civilization, etc.. In other terms, I have been un-American in the pursuit of feline happiness.

Are your pets (dogs, cats, cockateels, gerbils, ferrets, spiders, what have you)reaping the benefits of the good ol' Uhmurkin know-how and way of life, comfort, and pursuit of happiness? because, while millions of people are losing their jobs, houses, sanity, etc.. as we face the worst economic crisis and overall situation of the last.... 50 or 80 years, you don't want your cat to miss out on a stroller outing, do you? Don't lose your sense of reality, will you?....

Loneliness in Cyberspace

Still no comment on my blog.... Why does one keep writing? Robinson? Cast away?

Vox in deserto clamans?... sed vox?...

Imagination & Culture

Imagination is an underrated or mislooked-at quality. It allows you, among other things, to imagine how others live, feel, think, in other terms, it is also a quality of empathy. Just like culture is the bridge between you and others, through a shortening or collapse of time and culture obstacles or differences, imagination allows you to live better in the world. Without imagination, you may well have no real social interaction or integration. This social, intellectual, and affective/sensorial quality is often overlooked, forgotten, unknown, ignored.
Just thought I'd try to set the record straight in this brief "apology" of imagination.
The thought or remark of the day

Shark Fins

Why the cruelty? While shark fin soup is a delicacy in Asia, we humans kill between 73 and 76 million sharks a year. I know some will say that sharks are purely "organic" animals, surviving on instinct and no brain, no feelings, etc.. BUT they are also immune to cancer, pneumonia, and maybe other diseases and maybe we have thigns to learn from them (and from all of nature, still) before we make them extinct?

And that scene of Asian fishermen, catching a boatload of sharks, some of them young and small, to slice off their fins and then dump the rest of the sharks back into the water... What about the pain to them? Isn't it like getting our fingernails torn off? And can they survive sans fin or do they bleed to death, or rot, or sink, and die? inhumane, and inhuman.
We aren't there yet, folks.

Still nonsense killing and nonsense cruelty to humans, to ourselves, to others. We can do more, we can do better, and we HAVE to do more and do better. Let's start with our own house, our own country where too many are left behind without the basics of medical care, vaccinations, education, food, dignity, human respect, etc..

Welcome to 2009, may it be better than the previous years and tears....