Marley
ANIMAL ADVENTURE THIS WEEK:
As a long retired member of the human race, It’s not often that I come into contact with other animals (than those like me). This week I had a small adventure (or sighting) of four other animals: a racoon, a ground hog, a skunk and a Chihuahua. Remember, I’m an elder, so it was exciting for me, though probably incidental to the reader.
My daughter and I decided to get a dog, and had to drive to Columbus to adopt one of our choosing. We found one at the Humane Society, but he already had interested folks, though it would be first come at 2 p.m. the following day, first takers. Since Athens was almost 2 hours away, and despite not having my nighttime pills with me, in order to be first in line we drove down the road and found a rest area and slept in the car. At the rest stop and prior to sleeping, my daughter saw a large racoon running up to me, and fearful that it might be rabid and attack me, she threw it food in the other direction. Shortly thereafter a huge racoon climbed a garbage can right in front of the car before it and a companion ran off into the woods. I do wonder where they sleep. I can’t imagine running across one sleeping during the day.
IN ORDER TO ASSUAGE MY GUILT ABOUT PERHAPS USURPING SOMEONE ELSE FOR MARLEY, I HOPED THEY WERE ONE OF THE PUPPY FOLKS WHO BUY ALL THE PUPPIES THEY CAN IN ORDER TO RESELL THEM AT MUCH HIGHER PRICES.
Back home in Athens that night there was some excitement when a groundhog became trapped in a wired garbage cage (my vocabulary fails me). Its head was stuck under the strong wire fencing during the hottest part of the day. A neighbor’s dog noticed him stuck there with his nose pinned to the earth, and barked. Three female college students tried to free the ground hog to no avail. My daughter and I came out of the condo building, roused by the nighttime activity, and began trying to saw through the bars to no avail. One student called the police to come with bolt cutters, and a big strong policeman soon appeared without bolt cutters, but muscles. At this point the little feller had been trapped in high temperature, and although my daughter brought out a bowl of water it wasn’t clear that he would be alive to drink it, even if rescued. The big strong policeman just grabbed the enclosing metal fence and pulled it up, freeing the little feller, who ran like heck across the lawn of the condo building to hide behind the outside air conditioning units there. My daughter put the bowl of water down near where he was hiding, and we all thanked the policeman. A few minutes later my daughter went out to toss a few crumbs of bread for the ground hog, and found a large skunk drinking from the bowl. When he saw my daughter not far away he ran right at her. She avoided him and isn’t sure he had really seen her or just headed in her direction. That’s three of the animals we ran into this week, and oh yes, I forgot to mention Marley, who joined our family that day (actually, yesterday). And I forgot the two deer sightings during the trip.
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Pray Never to become an Immigrant:
“The political left in both Europe and the U.S. has struggled to come up with a response to these [immigration] developments. Instead, many progressives have dismissed immigration concerns as merely a reflection of bigotry that needs to be defeated. And opposition to immigration is frequently infused with racism: Right-wing leaders like Marine Le Pen in France traffic in hateful stereotypes about immigrants…”
Source lost–probably nytimes this week__
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Opinion David French
WHO TRULY THREATENS THE CHURCH?
To quote Jesus in the book of Mark, “There is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him.” All manner of sin and evil comes “from within, out of the heart of man.”
Under this understanding of Scripture, we are all our own greatest enemy — Christians as fully as those who do not share our beliefs. We do not, either as individuals or as a religious movement, possess an inherent virtue that should entitle any of us to rule. We shun the will to power because we rightly fear our own sin, and we protect the liberty of others because we do not possess all wisdom and we need to hear their ideas.
“Of course that is not to say that external voices and ideas can have no negative effect in our lives. We might be our own greatest enemy, but we’re not our only enemy. But if we are deeply flawed, then that realization has to profoundly impact how we approach politics. It has to temper our confidence that we either can control or should control the public square.”
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UNBELIEVABLE
“Mr. Trump’s lawyers asked Judge Cannon this week to postpone the trial indefinitely, a move that could serve to push it until after the 2024 election. If that were to happen and Mr. Trump were to win the race, he could try to pardon himself after taking office or have his attorney general dismiss the case.”
From <https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/14/us/politics/trump
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MAUREEN DOWD SAYS
The ingesting and synthesizing of words, images and music is going on in giant gulps. Indeed, the day is fast approaching when the digerati will be able to make a whole fake movie.
As Lanier said, “They might say, ‘Make me a movie that’s similar to Tom Cruise’s “Mission: Impossible.” However, make sure that none of the synthetic actors can be mistaken for known actors and make sure that we’re not going to get sued, but let’s go right up to the line.’ That’s not quite feasible today, but I don’t see any reason why it wouldn’t be. It’s just math. And we can do it.”
NANMYKEL.COM 
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