It's true that glumbert is biased for Obama, but what the hell...it's free speech bitches. If it bothers them so much why don't they just make their own glumbert site.
fascinating..... ..... get rich and avoid prosecution....i love happy endings ...John McCai's wife, Cindy McCain, along with her father, made a $359,000 investment in retail property owned by Charles Keating in 1986..... Keating was later convicted on 73 counts of fraud, conspiracy, and other crimes. Years later, Cindy McCain sold her investment for $15,000,000. For anyone not aware of the Keating Five, here's a very simple summary: Charles Keating owned a savings and loan in California. He was illegally using the money of his bank's customers to give loans to himself and friends that they didn't have to repay, and to speculate on risky real estate investments, which was strictly forbidden by U.S. law (and was one cause of the Great Depression)." ....keating then attempted (successfully) to buy influence with n the u.s. congress and senate.....5 senators and congressmen were involed all transparently guilty, i don't think any received any time.... mccain was one of the 5.... oh yeah, he was also found to be guilty of tax evasion but once again dodged the bullet and avoided prosecution...
Oooh, that was just too much to read, chuck ol' boy. I'm, lazy, an' you know it!
But I'm sure it was interesting... Well, maybe not entirely sure. But I AM entirely sure that you started that paragraph off with the word "fascinating", yet again. =)
no no no----me like little infinity----you fake my name----I crush your skull-feed little piece's to pet sloth----when he crap it out----me make special face paint----then go crush skulls of your whole tribe----make nice decoration for halloween
Hey skullcrusher, what's up? I did something you might be interested in.
Check out my new profile picture.
Took several hours to make, and it's fully functional. (You can stop drooling now.)
Hey buttocks, do you really think you need another alias? Stow this 'skullrusher' shite and get a life.
And if you must know, my working papers allow for nothing more than summer jobs with minimum wage. And then there's school; how the hell am I supposed to get a job during the school year?
Gonna take a break from all the political crud for a bit here, and.....what? What the christ do I want to do? Vent? Share? Opine? Solicit input? Chew the fat? Do the fandango? Who the fuck knows. Anyways, here goes:
Three weeks now, something's not been sitting well with me. As a matter of fact, I'm pretty shocked/surprised that this lingers in me. THREE fuckin' WEEKS. I'm am severely.....bugged.
Like any other day, I'm driving to work heading into an afternoon shift. Bright sunny, day actually. As is always the case, when you see something different or suddenly usual, it's usually outta the corner of your eye. This was how this came to be. One minute I'm put-put-putting along, listening to my One-Hit Wonders Of The Eighties CD, and the next.....whammo. Here's what I saw, that made me slow down.... stop, and walk towards it:
I saw a cat. It was hard to guess its age, because what was left of it looked it went through a woodchipper. I will hedge a guess and say it might have been a tabby, at best. It was tucked into that nook where the sidewalk meets the road; blood clotted its mangled fur; one hind leg was obscenely twisted begind its spine; one front paw was cracked forward in an almost surreal 90-degree angle; a deep gash scissored its way from its belly, towards the back of its head, and one eye was dangling by pinkish threads from an obliterated socket.
I know what some might be thinking..."Too bad. It got creamed by a passing car, and turned into road-kill. Happens all the time. So what? Don't be such a girly-man".
That's exactly what my attitude might have been, where it not for one teeny-tiny problem:
Yes, it was on the "road"......
But that's it.
It was still......alive.
Whatever was left of its destroyed respiratory system was trying to draw in deep, ragged breaths. And each time, new blood-bubbles formed at its mouth. Its broken, mangled paws twitched this way-and-that, as if it was trying to actually get up. Its whole body convulsed and spasmed...over and over and over again. But nothing would work. It saw me.....SAW ME....with its remaining eye, and tried to let out a "meow", I guess, but all that came out was....was....have you ever heard what an infant sounds like, when he'she has the croupe? That deep, gutteral, awful-sounding cough? That's what this sounded like.
I got down on one knee, beside this wrecked creature, and looked around. For some stupid reason, I got the idea to flag down a vet, and tried to remember what one looks like.
I've seen pain and suffering with human beings, lots of times, and unfortunately in a majority of THOSE cases....their pain and suffering tended to be induced by other human beings. But this? Like I said, I was (and am) shocked at how...different...this was for me, in terms of how it made me feel. It just lay there....in agony, twitching away and trying to use motor functions that looked like they were blasted to bits. Goddamn it all to fucking, stinking rotten.........
I vividly remember whispering two words:
"I'm sorry....."......and then it was over.
I got in my car, and went on to work. I didn't realize until I got there that my lip was bleeding, because I had bitten it and been unaware.
That was three weeks ago.
I have not told this to my kids, or even my wife. She may catch this entry, and be horrified, and that will have to do......unfortunately. Instead, I have taken the easy way out; the cowards way out. I decided instead to post and talk about it here, as an annonymous internet blogger, surrounded by faceless (but mostly decent), and equally annonymous fellow bloggers. There is safety in the shadows sometimes, I think. Or at least the perception that there is. And no matter how much it east at me, I cannot/will not...relate this to my kids.
Lemme tell you guys something:
When I was about nine or ten years old, we lived in an at-that-time 60-year-old house, in Toronto's westend (Canadaman would know this area as Parkdale). We had a problem with squirrels, right? They'd crawl and chew their way into the attic portion of our house, and make all kinds of noises all night long. It drove The Old Man fucking bonkers. I loved my Dad a lot; he was "old school", I guess you'd say. He loved his family and us, in his own way; but a temper? Coupled with his drinking? Fuuuuuuck. Anyways, he'd had enough of being kept awake all night by these squirrels, so he gets his ladder, climbs up into the attic, and actually catches one, and puts it in a paper bag. He came down the ladder with it, and I'm thinking he's gonna let it go, right? Well, while it was still in the bag.....he growls some curses under his breath and some obscenities....and steps on it....HARD. Just like that. Boom. A sharp, high-pitched agonized screech burst from the bag, from under his boot heel. I freaked. I mean...honestly...I.....fucking.....F-R-E-A-K-E-D. I couldn't believe it. From a nine year-olds perspective, that was hardcore, all the way.
He died about six years ago, from diabetes-related complications. We all took it pretty hard. But ya know what? In spite of the grief at his passing, I STILL had had an undercurrent of that lasting memory of him. It stuck and stayed, even after all these years. It's kinda like being a big room, surrounded by all kinds of stuff and memorabilia.....but at the far, far end of the room, you STILL notice that poster or picture hanging on the wall, even from that distance; and it will always be on the edge of your attention....not enough to make you captivated or immobile....but juuuuuuust enough that you'll always notice it. Always. Without fail.
I guess this is why I can't tell the kids this shit. Whenever the day comes I make MY exit....no way in hell will I let something like THAT be a legacy, or a memory attached to me; No way in hell will I let something like THAT, be written on my epitaph in their minds.
Canuck, the best they about very close friends is having some one to talk to. I understand no one here on glumbert can be that friend, but as a fellow psoter I would commend you for putting anything out of its misery (not people) and writing about your feelings never hurts.
What your Dad did in anger, for lack of sleep shouldn't be a high point of what you remember about him. All the things he did to keep you safe, warm and well feed is what's I think is important.
You had a Dad, many never do or will, that and the fact you can sure it on Glumbert is your blessing.
I watched my father drown kittens, chop heads off chickens and ducks, shoot cattle, etc. By the time I was ten I was hard as a rock, and when my favorite pet cat was killed on the road, like so many other pets, I grabbed a shovel and threw her in a hole and felt nothing.
In a some way I think it is beneficial to acknowledge life is death, but too much exposure is kinda creepy. Farm life is like that.
I was on my way to work one Sunday morning about 20 years ago, when I was 19. I was on a fairly urban road with few cars on it. A rather foolish squirrel decided to run across the road in front of me, I swerved but still hit it. I checked my rearview mirror and saw that it was still alive, I pulled over and went to check on it. I'd crushed its hind quarters but it's front was still trying to run across the road. I didn't want it to suffer so I grabbed a 2X4 out of the back of my truck. I gave it a sharp hit on the head but not hard enough kill it only enough to send it into a wild panic. The only thing I could do is repeatedly hit it as hard as I could to be sure to put it out of its misery. It was at this time I noticed a car slowly driving past, with an old woman of 80 or so, looking out of the passenger with sheer terror on her face. I don't know if I felt worse for the squirrel or the old woman.
I think everybody has to go through that experience once, seeing an animal dying, having to put it out of its misery. It sucks, but must be done. You didn't hit the cat with your car. You could't save it. So grab the 2x4, but get it done in one hit.
I too grew up on a farm, saw lots of death. One that stuck... my stepdad asked me to shoot a calf, must have been maybe 17. This thing had stepped in something, and twisted its foot, broke its hoove clean off. The stump was all infected and nasty, surely the calf was in pain. Yet it was just a baby. Maybe a vet could have amputated the leg, assuming it could have survived the infection, but ya know what? Farm economics don't allow such investment in one calf. Economics are cold and cruel, as is capitalism in general. I shot that calf, but I felt bad about it. I made damn sure I killed it on the first shot.
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