Bella Nova, the Rescue Dog

Bella Nova is our new baby. Bella is a rescue dog who came to us by way of my wife's uncle and his wife. They have fostered or taken in many a rescue dog. Bella was abandoned, locked up in a small chain link pen without food or water. According to the folks who originally rescued her, she had lived in that pen for about a year. She has obviously been abused. She is fearful of your hands moving towards her head. As if someone had been beating her.

 

Bella went from being rescued, to being caged up at the local vet's office, to being finally loved and cared for by Lynn and Theresa. She arrived there largely un-socialized and unused to trusting and being loved, but Lynn and Theresa have big hearts. So does Bella Nova. She is coming along quite admirably.

 

Now she is here with us. What she needs is love, attention, a little loving discipline, but most of all I think she needs stability. She needs to put down roots and draw from the well of kindness. A home in other words. A place where she knows she belongs and is wanted, valued, and yes, needed. Don't we all need that?

 

But we need more than just love and acceptance don't we? We also need play time.

 

So, that is the short story of how Bella Nova came to live here and be a part of our family. Even our kitty baby Baxter is beginning to get used to what he probably sees as her sudden arrival on the scene. It isn't as if you can explain to the kitties a new baby is coming.

 

The following is a copy and paste of a Facebook post I made this morning.

 

It is just me and the new dog, Bella Nova, this morning. She is a sweet dog, but she really has a bad case of separation anxiety. She wants to shadow you where ever you go.

 

She discovered the doggie in the mirror this morning. She seemed quite confused for about 5 seconds. She then saw the guy in the mirror, did a double take between him and me, and then just ignored the whole thing. I think she figured out that was me. No, I don't think she figured out what a mirror is and ...how it works. I think she figured my double just didn't matter because he wasn't going to feed her anytime soon. However that works out, she is pretty smart.

 

She also acted like she had never seen anyone in the shower before. That entire water falling from the wall, splashing on the glass, running out through a hole in the floor thing seemed to have her spooked. She kept running out and running back in and looking at the shower floor. Like "where does it all come from?" Then she seemed to be completely shocked at my stepping out all wet and everything. Human skin must look pretty bare to a dog. All those drops of water running down....how does that work?

 

It shocked the fire out of me when she decided to check it out a little closer and licked my butt cheek. I really didn't see that coming, though I shoulda. Lacey, the chihuahua, would lick the water off your feet. As if shower water on toes was just the yummiest treat evah. Honestly, it wasn't the worst thing to have ever happened. Even so, I hope her curiosity has been well and completely satisfied.

 

Like I said, she is a sweet dog. She is now napping on the sofa after a full morning of discovery and doggie duty.

Hillary Lies. A Lot.

I actually follow a number of different people on Twitter. People who are of different political persuasions. I like to keep a decent balance. And I look for people who offer well thought out commentary.

And I also follow Hillary. The interesting thing, as far as I am concerned, is Hillary is still campaigning. Whether that is the 2016 or the 2020, that's up to her. But she sounds like someone who is campaigning.

The other interesting thing about Hillary is she lies. A lot. ...This example is typical for her. In fact, this is a prototypical lie for politicians and the media alike. I am pointing this out because it serves as a great example of how these jackals yank your chain. Never mind this is Hillary, the democrats, and the liberal mainstream media. That is of lesser importance to understanding the methods they use.

What did Kavanaugh really say?

"They said filling out the form would make them complicit in the provision of the abortion-inducing drugs that they were, as a religious matter, objecting to."

He was repeating the argument made in an actual case filing made by an organization called Priests for Life in response to a question from Ted Cruz.

But Kamala Harris (also a massive liar) and the mainstream media (ditto) cut the context and the full statement down to an 11 second video clip where he said:

"Filling out the form would make them complicit in the provision of the abortion-inducing drugs that they were, as a religious matter, objected to."

So you know he really said that, you saw the clip didn't you? So get angry folks, this is proof Kavanaugh is a misogynist, racist, a Nazi.

Right?

No. This is proof of something just about 180° from that. This is proof "THEY" think YOU are stupid and easily manipulated.

This is why I fight. I will not accept this as normal. From anyone.

Thoughts On 9/11/2018

A lot of people around our country and no doubt around the world are saying and writing about the events of this day seventeen years ago. Remembering. Honoring. I too am reflecting as well, though my thoughts probably run just a bit differently than most. Which is perhaps not unusual.

I am thinking about the spectacles more recently past. The Kavanaugh confirmation. The Manafort trial. The Papadopolous sentencing. The 2016 election. It seems to me something is rotten in the State of Denmark. Though perhaps we as a nation have not quite put our finger on where the rot really lives.

It is in my mind to say this. It is always a mistake to assume those who scream the loudest represent the majority. This is the power of lunatic fringes. They make a lot of noise and smoke. It is also a mistake to assume the majority of what you see on TV and cable news presents an accurate reflection of reality. It does not. It does represent a majority of opinion within those organizations. If that opinion is only based upon what will generate the best ratings as opposed to ideological homogeneity, which many suspect, it doesn't really matter. The results are the same. The power of the media also lies in their ability to make a lot of noise and smoke.

Neither of these things, the screaming of the enraged or the preponderance of pomposity from the self proclaimed pundits, necessarily represents anything approaching a true consensus.

I am also thinking about the days and months leading up to the 2012 election. I am thinking of the a particular instance which to me represented a moment of remarkable insight. I had chanced upon a forum on the internet where people were discussing, among other things, the imminent impeachment of Barack Obama. They certainly had done their research. They recited the many charges chapter and verse. Of course one of those issues involved questions as to his citizenship and eligibility to even be president.

I had not really given much credence or thought to that particular charge, but what I saw made me curious. So I did some research on the subject with respect to law and precedent. What I found was clear. Even if Barack Obama had been born in Kenya it wouldn't have mattered one bit. His mother was an American citizen. Because of that, no matter where he was born, Obama is also a natural born US citizen with no need to become naturalized. There are only two kinds of US citizens, natural born or naturalized.

So I jumped back into this forum. I presented the facts along with links to and excerpts from the statutes. Would you like to guess the reaction I received? If you guessed complete and absolute denial you would be right. No one even acknowledged my comments. They simply refused to listen.

Why? Because the unreality, the fantasy if you will, had become too important. It had become a part of their identity. They had become blind to any other truth but their own.

I honestly see no real difference between what I saw and experienced leading up to the 2012 election and what I see today in the wake of the 2016 election, except for one thing. Back then the media acted to shut down the lunatic fringe. By ignoring them or actively demonizing them and anything they had to say, even if some of it was true. They also actively worked to associate those who were speaking truth or who simply did not agree with that lunatic fringe and demonize them by that association. The media also acted to actively support what the Obama administration said as truth, to positively spin any misstatement, to deflect any attack, to down play any lie exposed, to defend any failure.

Today the media is playing an entirely different role. No theory or story is too wild or outrageous. That which is unsubstantiated is substantiated because it aligns with their opinion. They substantiate it by printing it or stating it as truth. They are only to happy to broadcast or print anything as true as long as it matches their opinion, as long as it promotes their aims. They have spun anything they possibly could into a negative. They have trumpeted any misstep as a catastrophe. Everything is the end of the world. Every right is in danger and people will die.

It has become clear the media has purpose, a purpose which really has very little to do with truth.

We have entered the era of supposition as fact, the era of naked bias. The era of half truths, that most insidious of all lies. The era of the retraction issued half heartedly, late, or not at all. The era of the media trying to construct the appearance of the reality they wish to bring into being.

Or perhaps we have existed in that era all along. It has only now become manifestly evident and is only becoming more so with each passing day.