Last night Mary Ann and I were talking about Chinese food. She mentioned that she’d heard of lo mein, but didn’t know exactly what it was. I said I thought it had something to do with totem poles.
She didn’t get it.
Georgia On My Mind
I think the press and our government are being unfair to Russia right now.
As I understand it, South Ossetia, which borders Russia, is full of ethnic Russians and by and large would really rather be part of Russia, where it would be reunited with North Ossetia. Around 1994, South Ossetia (along with Abkhazia) fought a bloody war with Georgia (itself a former breakaway republic) and gained a measure of de facto independence.
Mikheil Saakashvili, the “leader” of Georgia and a career academic and sycophant of America who transitioned directly into a thug politician, decided he didn’t like South Ossetian independence. So, on August 7th (or early on the 8th) he launched a huge sneak attack on Tskhinvali, the South Ossetian capitol. Artillery fire and missiles rained down on the city, causing immense damage and killing numerous civilians.
As one might imagine, Russia didn’t take too kindly to this. So, Russia attacked and beat the everloving crap out of Georgia. Immediately, Saakashvili, who would have to be dumber than a pithed frog to not know this would happen, began crying to the western media about how the big bad Russians were picking on poor little Georgia. A lot of the media bought his story hook, line and sinker. I’ve sure heard a lot more about the Russian attack on Georgia than Georgia’s attack on South Ossetia, which started the whole conflagration.
Of course, dumbass George Bush, who probably thinks this is the Georgia Ray Charles wrote the song about, reflexively came out and slammed Russia. I mean, how dare someone except us violate the territorial integrity of a foreign country! Of course, the distinction, as explained by our UN ambassador, is that people shouldn’t violate the territorial integrity of countries in Europe. It’s OK in other places, like wherever we happen to be doing it.
Now, there are two sides to this story, and a lot more to it than can be covered in a few paragraphs. My point is that, to hear about it in many American media outlets, Russia is entirely at fault. That isn’t true. Saakashvili appears to be a pathological liar, which is no doubt one of the traits that has endeared him to the Bush administration. He stated on Wednesday that the United States was readying to take over airports and ports in the former Georgia. Hey, let’s try to trigger a world war while we’re at it, Mikheil! Luckily, even we aren’t that stupid, and we instantly made it clear that we wouldn’t be going in there. Whew!
To go back to my original point, while I’m no big fan of Russia, their response to what Georgia did is somewhat understandable. We have lost our moral standing to judge them, as far as I’m concerned. Maybe we should keep our nose out of everybody else’s business and worry a little bit more about our own. Also, would someone please point out to the American media and government that the Cold War has been over for a while, and that we don’t really need a new one?
Reason Number 623 To Not Bother With The Olympics
A lot of the the other reasons are more serious — you know, the way the Chinese treat their people and all that — but a good reason to not bother with the Olympics is the sheer triviality of so many of the events. About a third of the Chinese medals have been won in the 3 and 10-meter tandem diving events. Who the hell cares? How many tandem divers are competing in the world? Fifteen? Oops…I guess it would have to be sixteen.
Even worse, they’re giving out medals in 10-meter air-rifle shooting. What’s next? Slingshotting? Rockem Sockem Robots? That little football game you play with folded-up paper on your desk? This is absurd. Look at this picture of the winner, Abhinav Bindra of India:
I believe he has been assimilated.
I Guess It’s Okay, Then
John Edwards, who had an affair while his wife was suffering from cancer, made it a point to explain that when he began the affair, she was in remission. No, I’m not making this up.
Don’t Know Why There’s No Sun Up In The Sky…
This is primarily for the non-Chicagoans among you. On August 3rd, we had quite a nasty storm here, one comparable to any I’ve seen in a bad horror movie. I just read today that northern Illinois had 90,000 lightning strikes in a four-hour period that night, as much as we usually receive in six-months. There were three tornadoes, none in Chicago proper but nearby. The one in Bolingbrook was a little too nearby, as far as I’m concerned. done
Tough Times For Bonkers
Mr. Bonkers isn’t doing well. Although the vets don’t know precisely what’s wrong, he’s suffering from severe fluid build-up in his lungs, pericardial sac (which surrounds the heart) and abdomen. He’s extremely listless, although seemingly not in actual pain. His breathing is becoming labored. He doesn’t move much. The vets are suddenly using words like “end-stage,” although they seemingly failed to diagnose the beginning stage and middle stage.
We’re proceeding with more antibiotics. We’re also reducing the huge amount of prednisone he’s taking. Prednisone depresses the immune system. With the dose Bonkers was on, he became susceptible to all kinds of infections, and some of them may be happening now.
I never thought the illness of a cat could make it difficult for me to function and focus on my daily tasks. I was wrong. And as heartbroken as I am, Mary Ann is that much worse. I keep telling myself that if it wasn’t for us, Mr. Bonkers might not have made it out of that shelter to enjoy five of the most-loved years a cat ever had. That isn’t much consolation at the moment.
Still, we have not given up.
Snippy At SummerDance
After a tension-filled day of unpleasantries at work, Mary Ann reminded me of my promise to attend tango night at SummerDance. No way I was actually going to dance, but I had said I would go hear the music. Mary Ann, for those of you who don’t know, was born in Argentina. She speaks like where she was raised, though — Hillside, Illinois. They don’t even have a hill, by the way.
We took a bus to Chinatown and the Red Line downtown from there. Here are a few shots from the Chinatown station:
The only way I could think of to have fun at SummerDance was to mock people out and annoy Mary Ann. Childish? Yep. Do I apologize? Nope.
There was a guy with a blue blanket covered with images of skiers. He bugged me by standing in front of us, so I created the legend of The Ski Master:
doneThen I moved around for a closer view of the “dancing”:
doneOn the way back, our last CTA connection, the Cermak bus, took about 40 minutes to show up. Thanks to you, too, CTA. And you were doing such a nice job until then.
The bus did eventually drop us off at the Skylark, where the good company (aided by a few beverages) took the edge off the pain. I would have bought the Ski Master a beer, but he never showed.
Happy Birthday, Mary Ann!
I won’t say exactly how old Mary Ann is, but she was showing me a picture of a trilobite that lived in a pond where she grew up.
In honor of Mary Ann’s birthday, I’ve honored her request and posted footage of an aardvark and the giraffes at the Brookfield Zoo during a recent visit. The footage is special in that it’s the first time we ever saw an aardvark doing anything but lying in a motionless heap. Also, we caught the giraffes while they were being given a special leafy treat.
Lots of love, Mary Ann, and many special leafy treats in the future!
P.S. The binturongs send their best wishes too.
done
Back Again
I recently fell victim to a very nasty computer virus. After a lengthy struggle, I was forced to delete my operating system and start all over again. The scary thing was that the virus came from a program that had checked out clean with my antivirus program. I had a lot of programs installed on this computer, and it’s taken time to come back online. No important documents, music, or pictures were lost, though, since I keep them on separate drives that did not have to be reformatted. It’s just a big pain in the butt. Oh well. Stuff happens. Especially to me.
