I went to volunteer orientation at this wonderful organization in Atlanta recently. It's a shelter for animals rescued from outlying "kill facilities" that have little chance of being adopted (since they are in remote locations) or animals who require medical procedures or care that their previous owners couldn't provide. I love this place. I've been wanting to do something like this ever since I saw "Year of the Dog." (I told a friend of mine that I was going to do it last week and he asked if I had seen the movie. I immediately gushed about how much I love the movie and revealed my trepidation at recommending it to friends, since I'm afraid they'll see it and be reminded of me for all the wrong reasons. He laughed and said "Yeah, when we watched it, I thought she reminded me of you.")
Being in a group of people who all want to help animals and thus do a tiny part in the work of making the world a better place was very moving. (Also, the pets were SO adorable and sweet and inspiring. The little cat I sponsored last week had almost died from a spay complication but when I visited her, she was so peaceful and friendly. I honestly think animals are an inspiration.) There was a single man in his forties dressed in his work clothes, several young college-aged women in sweatshirts and jeans, a few young professional women, and numerous sets of couples (one even brought their children, which was also moving to me).
It's funny, because I've often heard it said that people grow to look like their pets, and I think that's true, although I also think people pick pets that suit their temperaments, so they don't really have to morph that much (think "Best in Show"). I think what fascinates me more is when couples begin to look like each other. There was one couple there who looked so much alike that I stared at them a little bit, without intending to, of course. I thought, "Maybe they are brother and sister," but then I thought "Volunteering with your brother or sister once you're in your late twenties is kind of weird, too."
I have to admit that whichever way it actually is, the weirdness was still touching because like everyone else there, these two people--regardless of relation--want to give of their time and their hearts to help animals in need. And that's reassuring to me.
The whole experience reaffirmed my faith in humankind. It turns out that there are many humans who are interested in helping animals with no reward other than the unconditional love of a puppy or kitty, which of course is one of the greatest rewards you could receive in my opinion.
In a way, it's like the Grinch--my heart grew THREE SIZES that day.
Plus, I fell head over heels in love. With a beagle. I wonder what that says about my personality. I guess growing to resemble a joyful little beagle named Danny Boy wouldn't be the worst thing in the world.
Charity :)
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Wednesday, March 05, 2008
scarier even that octopeds.
Forgive me for reposting again. I am actually writing a few stories right now and will post one or two soon. However, when I read this I just had to share it.
It's the real nightmare, and one that I try not to think about since it's so terrifying. However, it's one that I will be living with for years to come and so will my children and grandchildren. I mean seriously, who has decided that we can't afford to provide health care for poor children or refinance loans for people who are losing their homes, but we can afford billions, nay trillions of dollars for a foreign war? If care for veterans is so fraught with problems now, who has decided that it will be sufficient to meet ever increasing demands due to an incredibly (unacceptably) long foreign war (that we were told would only last a few months, incidentally). Who has decided that cutting taxes while spending trillions of dollars on a foreign war is good for the economy?
Why does it seem that no one in power will listen to reason? Why does the American public seem complacent in securing this great nation's demise?
Sometimes I wish FDR would come help us out again. Remember when war was good for the economy and social programs actually helped keep things going?
------------
March 4, 2008
Op-Ed Columnist
The $2 Trillion Nightmare
By BOB HERBERT
We’ve been hearing a lot about “Saturday Night Live” and the fun it has been having with the presidential race. But hardly a whisper has been heard about a Congressional hearing in Washington last week on a topic that could have been drawn, in all its tragic monstrosity, from the theater of the absurd.
The war in Iraq will ultimately cost U.S. taxpayers not hundreds of billions of dollars, but an astonishing $2 trillion, and perhaps more. There has been very little in the way of public conversation, even in the presidential campaigns, about the consequences of these costs, which are like a cancer inside the American economy.
On Thursday, the Joint Economic Committee, chaired by Senator Chuck Schumer, conducted a public examination of the costs of the war. The witnesses included the Nobel Prize-winning economist, Joseph Stiglitz (who believes the overall costs of the war — not just the cost to taxpayers — will reach $3 trillion), and Robert Hormats, vice chairman of Goldman Sachs International.
Both men talked about large opportunities lost because of the money poured into the war. “For a fraction of the cost of this war,” said Mr. Stiglitz, “we could have put Social Security on a sound footing for the next half-century or more.”
Mr. Hormats mentioned Social Security and Medicare, saying that both could have been put “on a more sustainable basis.” And he cited the committee’s own calculations from last fall that showed that the money spent on the war each day is enough to enroll an additional 58,000 children in Head Start for a year, or make a year of college affordable for 160,000 low-income students through Pell Grants, or pay the annual salaries of nearly 11,000 additional border patrol agents or 14,000 more police officers.
What we’re getting instead is the stuff of nightmares. Mr. Stiglitz, a professor at Columbia, has been working with a colleague at Harvard, Linda Bilmes, to document, among other things, some of the less obvious costs of the war. These include the obligation to provide health care and disability benefits for returning veterans. Those costs will be with us for decades.
Mr. Stiglitz noted that nearly 40 percent of the 700,000 troops from the first gulf war, which lasted just a month, have become eligible for disability benefits. The current war is approaching five years in duration.
“Imagine then,” said Mr. Stiglitz, “what a war — that will almost surely involve more than 2 million troops and will almost surely last more than six or seven years — will cost. Already we are seeing large numbers of returning veterans showing up at V.A. hospitals for treatment, large numbers applying for disability and large numbers with severe psychological problems.”
The Bush administration has tried its best to conceal the horrendous costs of the war. It has bypassed the normal budgetary process, financing the war almost entirely through “emergency” appropriations that get far less scrutiny.
Even the most basic wartime information is difficult to come by. Mr. Stiglitz, who has written a new book with Ms. Bilmes called “The Three Trillion Dollar War,” said they had to go to veterans’ groups, who in turn had to resort to the Freedom of Information Act, just to find out how many Americans had been injured in Iraq.
Mr. Stiglitz and Mr. Hormats both addressed the foolhardiness of waging war at the same time that the government is cutting taxes and sharply increasing non-war-related expenditures.
Mr. Hormats told the committee:
“Normally, when America goes to war, nonessential spending programs are reduced to make room in the budget for the higher costs of the war. Individual programs that benefit specific constituencies are sacrificed for the common good ... And taxes have never been cut during a major American war. For example, President Eisenhower adamantly resisted pressure from Senate Republicans for a tax cut during the Korean War.”
Said Mr. Stiglitz: “Because the administration actually cut taxes as we went to war, when we were already running huge deficits, this war has, effectively, been entirely financed by deficits. The national debt has increased by some $2.5 trillion since the beginning of the war, and of this, almost $1 trillion is due directly to the war itself ... By 2017, we estimate that the national debt will have increased, just because of the war, by some $2 trillion.”
Some former presidents — Washington, Franklin Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower — were quoted at the hearing on the need for accountability and shared sacrifice during wartime. But this is the 21st century. That ancient rhetoric can hardly be expected to compete for media attention, even in a time of war, with the giddy fun of S.N.L.
It’s a new era.
It's the real nightmare, and one that I try not to think about since it's so terrifying. However, it's one that I will be living with for years to come and so will my children and grandchildren. I mean seriously, who has decided that we can't afford to provide health care for poor children or refinance loans for people who are losing their homes, but we can afford billions, nay trillions of dollars for a foreign war? If care for veterans is so fraught with problems now, who has decided that it will be sufficient to meet ever increasing demands due to an incredibly (unacceptably) long foreign war (that we were told would only last a few months, incidentally). Who has decided that cutting taxes while spending trillions of dollars on a foreign war is good for the economy?
Why does it seem that no one in power will listen to reason? Why does the American public seem complacent in securing this great nation's demise?
Sometimes I wish FDR would come help us out again. Remember when war was good for the economy and social programs actually helped keep things going?
------------
March 4, 2008
Op-Ed Columnist
The $2 Trillion Nightmare
By BOB HERBERT
We’ve been hearing a lot about “Saturday Night Live” and the fun it has been having with the presidential race. But hardly a whisper has been heard about a Congressional hearing in Washington last week on a topic that could have been drawn, in all its tragic monstrosity, from the theater of the absurd.
The war in Iraq will ultimately cost U.S. taxpayers not hundreds of billions of dollars, but an astonishing $2 trillion, and perhaps more. There has been very little in the way of public conversation, even in the presidential campaigns, about the consequences of these costs, which are like a cancer inside the American economy.
On Thursday, the Joint Economic Committee, chaired by Senator Chuck Schumer, conducted a public examination of the costs of the war. The witnesses included the Nobel Prize-winning economist, Joseph Stiglitz (who believes the overall costs of the war — not just the cost to taxpayers — will reach $3 trillion), and Robert Hormats, vice chairman of Goldman Sachs International.
Both men talked about large opportunities lost because of the money poured into the war. “For a fraction of the cost of this war,” said Mr. Stiglitz, “we could have put Social Security on a sound footing for the next half-century or more.”
Mr. Hormats mentioned Social Security and Medicare, saying that both could have been put “on a more sustainable basis.” And he cited the committee’s own calculations from last fall that showed that the money spent on the war each day is enough to enroll an additional 58,000 children in Head Start for a year, or make a year of college affordable for 160,000 low-income students through Pell Grants, or pay the annual salaries of nearly 11,000 additional border patrol agents or 14,000 more police officers.
What we’re getting instead is the stuff of nightmares. Mr. Stiglitz, a professor at Columbia, has been working with a colleague at Harvard, Linda Bilmes, to document, among other things, some of the less obvious costs of the war. These include the obligation to provide health care and disability benefits for returning veterans. Those costs will be with us for decades.
Mr. Stiglitz noted that nearly 40 percent of the 700,000 troops from the first gulf war, which lasted just a month, have become eligible for disability benefits. The current war is approaching five years in duration.
“Imagine then,” said Mr. Stiglitz, “what a war — that will almost surely involve more than 2 million troops and will almost surely last more than six or seven years — will cost. Already we are seeing large numbers of returning veterans showing up at V.A. hospitals for treatment, large numbers applying for disability and large numbers with severe psychological problems.”
The Bush administration has tried its best to conceal the horrendous costs of the war. It has bypassed the normal budgetary process, financing the war almost entirely through “emergency” appropriations that get far less scrutiny.
Even the most basic wartime information is difficult to come by. Mr. Stiglitz, who has written a new book with Ms. Bilmes called “The Three Trillion Dollar War,” said they had to go to veterans’ groups, who in turn had to resort to the Freedom of Information Act, just to find out how many Americans had been injured in Iraq.
Mr. Stiglitz and Mr. Hormats both addressed the foolhardiness of waging war at the same time that the government is cutting taxes and sharply increasing non-war-related expenditures.
Mr. Hormats told the committee:
“Normally, when America goes to war, nonessential spending programs are reduced to make room in the budget for the higher costs of the war. Individual programs that benefit specific constituencies are sacrificed for the common good ... And taxes have never been cut during a major American war. For example, President Eisenhower adamantly resisted pressure from Senate Republicans for a tax cut during the Korean War.”
Said Mr. Stiglitz: “Because the administration actually cut taxes as we went to war, when we were already running huge deficits, this war has, effectively, been entirely financed by deficits. The national debt has increased by some $2.5 trillion since the beginning of the war, and of this, almost $1 trillion is due directly to the war itself ... By 2017, we estimate that the national debt will have increased, just because of the war, by some $2 trillion.”
Some former presidents — Washington, Franklin Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower — were quoted at the hearing on the need for accountability and shared sacrifice during wartime. But this is the 21st century. That ancient rhetoric can hardly be expected to compete for media attention, even in a time of war, with the giddy fun of S.N.L.
It’s a new era.
Tuesday, March 04, 2008
they're coming...
they change colors:
they escape through tiny holes:
they hide inside things:
they kill sharks:
they walk:
and now, they are mutating in hopes of soon taking over the world, if my thoughts on the subject are to be believed (source):
predictors of the greatest tragedies have often been accused of making mountains out of molehills. think about it.
(source)
charity ;)
they escape through tiny holes:
they hide inside things:
they kill sharks:
they walk:
and now, they are mutating in hopes of soon taking over the world, if my thoughts on the subject are to be believed (source):
predictors of the greatest tragedies have often been accused of making mountains out of molehills. think about it.
charity ;)
Sunday, March 02, 2008
there will be blood. at the delicatessen.
so i made it to see this film last night. i don't know how i feel about it, honestly. i mean, daniel day-lewis, as expected, gives a tremendous performance. the movie wasn't the greatest though, in my opinion. perhaps because we missed the first few minutes (i blame the cashier--or more specifically, the cash register--where we ate prior to the movie) which made the rest of it better. slim chance, but a slim chance is still a chance after all. it was just so slow. there were moments of triumph, or passion, or emotional pull, but overall it kind of let me down. it could be because for various reasons i have the movie in the same category in my mind as no country for old men, which was stunning and intense, but i don't know. it could also be because i'd had two margaritas before the movie and was distracted by the people whispering and laughing in the row ahead of us. who knows.
anyway, since it was still early, we rented delicatessen, which i've been wanting to see for some time. it also was a bit disappointing, but it was still pretty good.
paul thomas anderson, who directed there will be blood is hit or miss with me (he also directed magnolia [overrated] and punch-drunk love [underrated]) but jeunet is basically just hit. everybody seems to think delicatessen is like his best or "classic" work, but it was not as good as his others, i think, and oddly enough, he shared director credit with someone else on this film, so the idea of it being "classic jeunet" is pretty absurd.
anyway, just some thoughts.
i've also been sporadically renting "it's always sunny in philadelphia"--which is technically a tv show and which i technically shouldn't be watching--and it has been really great so far.
i think noises off is next in my netflix queue, which my mom insists is her favorite movie of all time. i myself never commit to such dramatic statements regarding my film preferences, so either the film is truly amazing or my mom has a commitment problem opposite of mine. i'm finding it hard to believe the former, but the latter seems plausible.
anyway, since it was still early, we rented delicatessen, which i've been wanting to see for some time. it also was a bit disappointing, but it was still pretty good.
paul thomas anderson, who directed there will be blood is hit or miss with me (he also directed magnolia [overrated] and punch-drunk love [underrated]) but jeunet is basically just hit. everybody seems to think delicatessen is like his best or "classic" work, but it was not as good as his others, i think, and oddly enough, he shared director credit with someone else on this film, so the idea of it being "classic jeunet" is pretty absurd.
anyway, just some thoughts.
i've also been sporadically renting "it's always sunny in philadelphia"--which is technically a tv show and which i technically shouldn't be watching--and it has been really great so far.
i think noises off is next in my netflix queue, which my mom insists is her favorite movie of all time. i myself never commit to such dramatic statements regarding my film preferences, so either the film is truly amazing or my mom has a commitment problem opposite of mine. i'm finding it hard to believe the former, but the latter seems plausible.
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