I had a burning need to talk about how Bill and I came to acquire our dogs, Noyzi and Charlie, from Kosovo. It was because we knew the local animal shelter would not let us adopt dogs because we’re Americans. It all turned out for the best, as far as we’re concerned.
Thank God for “discrimination”…
I’m sorry about the length of this video. I meant it to be shorter. But I couldn’t say everything I wanted to say, otherwise. Because it took so long, I didn’t have time to write a proper blog post. But we’re going on our vacation tomorrow, so maybe there will be something new and exciting soon.
Now… I have to walk the dogs and, I think I will do the vacuuming, so I can skip it tomorrow. Later, y’all…
Featured photo is of my left knee, which has a couple of scars, but they aren’t as dramatic as the one on my right knee. I have a very old and deep scar that looks like a cut on the top right corner of my left knee. I have no idea how or when that happened, but I do remember the bigger, faded scar under my kneecap.
Good morning, blog readers. It’s almost 9:00 AM, and I’ve been sitting here thinking about what today’s blog post will cover. As I’ve been thinking, I’ve also been playing around with AI on Google. Maybe I shouldn’t do that, but I figure AI is probably not going away. And besides, there are things it can do that are pretty interesting.
For example, I have a couple of weird marks on my skin. One area is hypo-pigmented. The other is so pigmented that people often gasp in horror when they see it. It looks like a big bruise, but I think it’s actually a birthmark… probably a port wine stain. My mom has a big birthmark on her butt, but hers is brown. How apropos!
This has been on my left thigh for many years.And the weird pale patch is on my right arm. Again, it’s been there forever.
I fed these two images into Google AI, and got explanations for both. At first, Google seemed a bit concerned about my birthmark, because it seems like some kind of rash or injury. But I’ve had that mark for many years.
It was interesting to read the explanations, which I think were probably pretty accurate. I thought the explanation of the pale mark was especially interesting. Maybe it was from an old injury of some kind, but I don’t remember it, if it was. It’s probably just a random freak of genetics or nature.
Just for fun, I also uploaded a picture of this 44 year old scar…
I got this scar, courtesy of my father…
My dad could be a friendly, kind, sensitive man… especially to people who weren’t his relatives. 🤨 In fact, a couple of days ago, a Moroccan man who worked with my sister when she was a Peace Corps Volunteer, shared a rather touching story about my dad on Facebook. It was about how my dad had been understanding to a local who was trying to take advantage of him for being a “rich American.”
I shared the story about my dad, because it highlighted one nice aspect of his personality, especially given his rather rustic upbringing. My dad did have some cultural sensitivity, and was often understanding and decent. However, he could also be racist, dumb, mean, irresponsible, and kind of cruel. People are complicated like that.
For instance, I got the above scar on my arm when I was about 9 or 10 years old. My dad, who was raised working on the family farm, thought it would be a good idea for me to use a box cutter to help him break down boxes. Dad ran his own picture framing business out of our house, so he had plenty of shipments of things like moulding. He’d put me to work… and sometimes, he would give me tasks that probably weren’t appropriate for children to be doing.
That day, I was cutting a box with a box cutter, and the blade was directed toward me. It slipped off of the cardboard I was cutting, and plunged into my left forearm. I was left with a deep, painful wound, that went through all layers of skin. I needed stitches, but Dad didn’t bother with it. So now I have this neat little scar on my arm, that is now part of Google’s AI library.
I remember the searing pain when I cut myself, and the horror of the stab wound. I also remember watching it heal, and then being confused when I was left with a somewhat sore, shiny, red scar on my white skin. Dad explained that the scar was now totally healed… but my skin was permanently marked, reminding me of that day when he decided a child needed to be using a box cutter. I don’t think he even thought to tell me to cut away from myself. 🙄
Years later, the scar is now faded to white, and is barely noticeable. It’s very deep, but it seems to be a little bit smaller than it used to be. Or maybe I’m just a lot bigger. The scar doesn’t hurt anymore, but whenever I think to look at it, I’m reminded of that sunny day in Gloucester, Virginia, when a second of carelessness, and my dad’s boneheadedness, left me with a permanent scar. Isn’t it interesting how the most mundane things can change your life?
I have a scar from 1991 that I got while working at Busch Gardens, in Williamsburg, Virginia. There was a summer rainstorm, and I slipped on the slick pebbly surface of the walking path, as I finished my shift. That fall, which might have also been caused by the worn-out soles on my black Reeboks, left a deep wound on my left knee.
I didn’t realize how bad the injury was until I went to turn in my till. I walked all the way from German Ice Cream to Cash Control, which was probably about a ten or twelve minute stroll. The whole time, I was bleeding like a stuck pig, but I didn’t notice, because it was dark out, and I hadn’t looked down at my leg.
That time, I actually got first aid. 🤭 I asked the ladies at Cash Control if they had a wet paper towel I could have, since my knee was bleeding all over the place. They freaked out and called the first aid people, who picked me up, took me to the first aid station and dressed my wound. It took forever to heal and left me with a gnarly looking reminder of my clumsiness in 1991. I wasn’t even drinking when it happened! 😳
This scar on my right knee took forever to heal and is still pretty noticeable. I also have one on my left knee, but it’s not nearly as obvious.
I didn’t mean to write about my skin, today. It just kind of happened that I did, because I was a little bored, sitting here thinking about what should be in the blog. I was actually thinking of writing a little more about animal rescue, but I was looking for a hook. Now that I think about it, writing about scars and other skin related stuff kind of fits right in with the animal rescue theme…
Over the weekend, I wrote a few posts about the Itty Bitty City Kitties cat rescue, and how their new anti-MAGA adoption policy had caused MAGA enthusiasts to melt down. I left a couple of innocuous comments, which led to my being cussed at and condemned by total strangers. Sometimes those kinds of comments also leave scars, although nowadays, I turn those kinds of wounds into content. 😏
In all the excitement over that particular controversy, I completely forgot that Bill and I were once kind of “victims” of pet rescue discrimination ourselves. When we lost our beagle, Zane, in 2019, I longed to get a new dog. But German animal shelters don’t like to adopt animals to Americans, because they have had too many negative situations with people who ditch their animals before moving back to the States. It’s usually US military folks who do that, leaving the impression that Americans, as a whole, are not responsible pet owners.
Knowing that the local pet shelter likely wouldn’t let us adopt, Bill and I took an alternate route. We wound up with Noyzi and Charlie, who came to us from Kosovo. They are wonderful additions to our household and great family members to us!
Would it have been “nice” to adopt locally? Sure… but I can understand why German animal shelters wouldn’t trust Americans. I have heard that sometimes, they will make exceptions. We didn’t want to bother with that, though, so I reached out on Facebook, and the universe brought us Noyzi and Charlie, as well as the woman who rescued them, Meg… and Meg’s friend, Luzlim, who is Kosovar, and still helps street dogs find homes. We were introduced to a whole new world through our dogs.
Not only is Meg a great friend to street dogs; she is also a fellow veteran, and student of Jungian psychology. Bill is now studying Jungian psychology, himself. It’s changing his life.
I decided to post a photo and a brief comment about how we ended up with our dogs, because the local animal rescue probably wouldn’t approve us. I reminded everyone that there are MANY animals who need homes, and plenty of rescues that are offering animals. They don’t all “discriminate” against MAGA… and sometimes, you might find your life changes, because you had to seek a different source to meet your personal needs.
Just to keep things topical, both Noyzi and Charlie have deep, lasting scars from their days in Kosovo. Noyzi is missing part of his left ear, probably because he had an ear tag and got into a fight with another dog. Charlie has a deep scar on his back from a wound caused by someone likely trying to kill him.
Both of them are wonderful dogs, though… and they both deserved a good home. No, they aren’t perfect, but they are both so interesting and unique. Maybe I wouldn’t have chosen them if fate hadn’t sent them, but there is no doubt in my mind that they were meant to be with us, enjoying life in Germany with Americans.
I just wish more people would stop complaining about things that ultimately don’t matter that much. I mean… what difference does it make if a cat rescue has unusual adoption standards? If you want a cat, you can get a cat. Instead of wasting time being personally offended by a policy that likely doesn’t even affect you, why not just seek an alternative source… or take a different path? You may not get what you think you want, but you will probably eventually get what you need… to paraphrase Mick Jagger. That is, if you’re open to it.
Maybe that path will lead to scars from unexpected brambles… but you’ll probably have a hell of a story to share. And you might meet people who are essential to your life, too… scars and all. 😉
So ends today’s blog post. Time to move on to music. Have a good day!
It’s Monday morning, the week of our long awaited vacation, which commences on Thursday. It’s always a little weird in the days before we leave town. I find myself making preparations before the big day comes. Today, I’m washing Noyzi’s bedding. It’s not that he cares about his bed being clean, but it does emit a certain “doggy odor”. It’s also kind of satisfying to throw out the huge balls of shedded dog hair that always end up in the bedding.
Whenever I brush Noyzi, there’s usually a shitload of hair that comes off. This is especially true in the spring, when he dumps his undercoat in preparation for hot summer days. But Noyzi sheds year round; therefore, there are always big dust bunnies in my house. In fact, last night, I dropped a pot of Carmex on the floor. It rolled under our bed.
I’m old, creaky, and have weaker eyesight than I used to, and it’s kind of dark in our room. I don’t want to get down on my hands and knees to retrieve things that fall under the bed, especially at bedtime.
I grabbed a microfiber dust mop, and ran it under my side of the bed, to see if I could fish out the wayward Carmex that way. My technique worked, but it also brought a big handful of dog hair, dust, and my own hair, as well as a couple of feathers from my pillows. I was genuinely impressed by the size of the dust bunny, especially since I know there are more still lurking under the bed.
As I’m remembering the large, hairy dust bunny from last night, I also recall a true crime video Bill and I watched yesterday afternoon. It truly was a “hair raising” story, on so many levels, especially given Bill’s own history with “hairy” relationship traumas… 🤨 As this case also involves pet dogs, and I’ve been writing a lot about pets, and what constitutes good pet ownership, lately, I think this story makes for a good Monday morning blog post.
She left the police station with a very different look than she arrived with… 🤔
This story is from April 7, 2026 in Roswell, New Mexico. A woman called American Airlines, claiming that her ex boyfriend had a bomb in the back of his vehicle, and he was planning to bring it with him on his flight. Naturally, the authorities took the threat seriously. The airport was locked down, and the authorities detained the woman’s 34 year old ex boyfriend, who was driving a rental car and planning to fly home to Indiana that day.
The bewildered man, eventually identified as “Jason”, is asked to get out of his vehicle. He is placed in handcuffs, read his Miranda rights, and seated in the back of a cop car. Initially, they don’t tell him why he’s being detained, even when he asks. They want to question him, but he says he doesn’t want to answer any questions without an attorney present. While that made things less convenient for the cops, I commend Jason for having the presence of mind not to speak to the police without legal counsel.
As the situation unfolds, the police discover that on the day prior, someone had asked the police to do a welfare check on the man’s ex girlfriend, 47 year old Brooke Ayers. Three officers are dispatched to Ayers’ residence, where she lives with several dogs. The cops ask Brooke if she knows “a Jason”, as she repeatedly insists that she’s “fine”.
At first, Brooke denies knowing Jason, but then eventually admits that she does know him, adding that she’d “kicked him out” over a “horrible breakup”. She explains that Jason had come to see her from Evansville, Indiana, and that on her birthday, which was the day prior, “he’d decided that [she] wasn’t enough.” She starts crying, then tells the police that Jason had “left money on [her] counter, like [she] was a whore.”
One of the cops continues talking to Brooke, who was initially friendly and cooperative. She repeatedly apologizes and cries, calling Jason “the love of [her] life”, tearfully lamenting that he’d decided on her birthday that she wasn’t worthy. The whole time, Brooke is concerned with two dogs in the yard. The cops, who seem sympathetic, ask Brooke if she wants to kill herself. She insists that she doesn’t. She has five dogs who need her. Fair enough.
The cop asks if Brooke needs anything. She says she’d ask for a hug, but she knows the cops “aren’t into that.” The cop obliges, giving Brooke a hug… not realizing that pretty soon, he and his buddies will be tearing their hair out, trying to deal with her dramatics. Brooke eagerly unlocks the gate to her property, and says before accepting the hug, “You’re not gonna snatch me, right?”
The officer reassures her that they don’t plan to “snatch” her. He encourages her to ask for help if she needs it. Brooke then says that Jason had laid her down in her bed, “banged” her, and then left her $100 like she was a “common whore.” The cop apologizes that Jason allegedly did that. Brooke goes back behind her fence, and immediately appears to want to re-lock the gate. At this point, I figure Brooke has had a number of past dramatic experiences with law enforcement.
At the airport, the police try to interview Jason, while his rental car is searched for evidence of explosives. An officer reminds Jason of his rights and asks Jason if he’ll talk to him. Jason looks like he wants to cooperate, but says he knows he hasn’t done anything. Then he says, again, that since he’s in handcuffs, he does not want to speak to the cops without an attorney present. Good man.
The cop then explained that they’d gotten a bomb threat from a “female” who might “be involved” with Jason. He’s in handcuffs as a “precaution.” Jason nods knowingly, looking a bit pained, but otherwise remains basically calm, under the circumstances. As the cop continues to explain, Jason takes a deep breath and kind of sighs. Obviously, the police can’t ignore a bomb threat, especially in this day and age.
The cop encourages Jason to explain– to “help debunk the situation”, after he says that he knows the bomb threat is “bullshit”. Jason says Brooke Ayers is “heartbroken”, and he had called 911 because he was concerned about her after their breakup. Apparently, she had made suicidal threats. He tells the cop that Brooke was “very upset” and he had feared for her welfare.
When the cop asks Jason how long he’s known Brooke, Jason seems embarrassed. He admits coming to Roswell to visit Brooke, and while he doesn’t state it outright, I suspect he likely met her online and hadn’t known her for long.
When Jason visited her for her birthday, she likely showed an unsettling side of her personality that caused him to break things off with her. It probably happened after they had sex. While I certainly don’t know the actual facts regarding Brooke’s history, I suspect that she may have a history of sexual abuse and, perhaps, might have borderline personality disorder, or something similar. I reiterate, though… it’s just an educated guess, on my part.
Once again, Jason asks the cop for a lawyer. He says he doesn’t have a bomb, and again, invokes his right to remain silent. This causes the officers to be even more suspicious.
The video shows the cops returning to Brooke’s residence a second time. They were seeking more information about the bomb. This is where things take a turn for the super weird…
One of the cops, initially friendly, asks Brooke to come outside and talk to them. They have more questions about Jason. She says “absolutely not”, and demands to know if they have a warrant. The cop reassures her that he’s not going to come on her property and she’s not (yet) detained. He asks what she “called in” earlier. Brooke, again, asks for a warrant.
The cop then says, “At this point…” which, although he hasn’t said it, is kind of code for, “now we’re going to detain you.” Brooke already knows this, and asks if she can get her dog inside the house. The cop agrees, still trying to build rapport and inspire cooperation. He asks about the dog, declaring him “beautiful” and asking about his breed.
Brooke is wise to him, and says “it doesn’t matter at this point.”
The cop says they want to take her to the police department and talk to her. He reassures her that “most likely” they will release her from there. Brooke declines the free ride to the police station, and once again, demands a warrant. Once again, I’m impressed by the presence of mind Brooke and Jason have when dealing with the cops. At least at first. 😳
Brooke continues to worry about her dogs. Her mood begins to turn hostile, and she makes it clear she’s not going to cooperate with them. When they ask her if her phone call to the TSA and American Airlines a “legitimate” call, she says she’s going to leave it up to them. But then, after more back and forth, Brooke, who is barefoot, suddenly says she’ll put on shoes and “go downtown.”
Then… Brooke tells the cops they’ll have to “hop the fence” and take her by force. She will get a knife to defend herself, adding that her life “doesn’t matter” at that point. She says she wants to put the dog in the house. And now, we see why Jason called 911…
One of the cops handcuffs Brooke, and she digs her fingernails into his arm. She still wants to put her dog inside, but forbids the cop from opening her front door. The cop says they’ll leave the dog outside, and Brooke begs them to put him inside. Brooke then relents, and tells them they can put the dog in the house. One cop says there are four more dogs inside.
At that point, Brooke starts getting more unsettled. She fights against the cop, and says “Please just shoot me.” Then she starts to fight the cops, who struggle to hold her. One of the cops instructs another one on the best way to hold Brooke, while she tries to wrestle out of his grip.
I started getting a little skeeved out at this point, as one cop sounds weirdly friendly as they manhandle a handcuffed Brooke into the police car. The cop says, in a jaunty tone of voice, “We don’t need the WRAP.” (eeeew)
On the ride to jail, Brooke makes threats, and insists that Jason has a bomb. The airport remains locked down. Meanwhile, Brooke wishes death on the cop who is driving her. They get Brooke into a cell, where she remains rear cuffed. She is then handcuffed to a bench, while her hands remain locked behind her back.
Later, a cop comes into the cell, to find Brooke on the floor with her arms still locked to the bench. The cop then weirdly says her arms are going to “hurt” that way. I would imagine her arms were pretty numb by that point. The cop then recuffs her in front, and re-locks her to the bench. She’s still barefoot. At some point, she urinates on herself.
Then… she does the thing that inspired the title of this post…
The cops leave Brooke alone, locked in the small cell, handcuffed to a bench with her hands in front. This is when she starts pulling out huge tufts of her brown hair. She yanks it out as if it’s handfuls of grass, dropping the hair on the floor… 😳
It’s painful to watch, as Brooke tears at her hair. She starts screaming, pulling more hair out until she has a noticeable bald spot. She screams more, and pulls out more hair. A cop comes into the cell, noticing the pile of dark brown hair on the floor. I assume she suffers from trichotillomania, which is a mental health condition that causes people to pull out their hair. She takes off her shorts, which are soaked with urine. The cop politely demands that she put on the shorts.
Brooke demands a lawyer, while the cops ask her to put her shorts on… before the place her in the WRAP restraint device. The officer, who asks her to “do him a favor” and put on her shorts… as he makes it clear she’s about to be put in the ghastly WRAP device. Weirdly enough, she kind of cooperates with them, as the cop instructs her of what to do, as they restrain her in the WRAP. The put the shorts back on her, then wrap her up. One of them says, “this can be very uncomfortable, but it’s a little more comfortable if you cooperate.” Oh my God… really?
While the cop puts Brooke in the WRAP, they put a helmet on her head and yank the straps tight. Her arms are once again cuffed behind her back. Meanwhile, the airport is still locked down. Then, Brooke starts trying to bang her head on the floor and demands water and starts talking about why she pissed on the floor. She asks the cop how “far he’s willing to go” if she starts fighting. He tells her she can’t fight very well in the WRAP. Then, she says “You’d be fucking surprised.”
Brooke then says she’s prior military, as she whines about not having a lawyer. The cops are actually being pretty patient and professional with her, although they still annoy me.
Brooke fixes her brown eyes at the cop charged with holding her while she’s in the WRAP. The look is really unhinged. Then, somehow, she manages to get her legs free of the WRAP. 🤔 The cop assures Brooke she’s going back into the WRAP. But Brooke continues doing the work of escaping her bonds. She looks in the camera and calmly shrugs out of the WRAP, as the cop tries to hold her. She says, “Keep putting your foot right there, and you’re gonna go down.”
She says, “Just let me take [my legs] out. I’m not fucking going anywhere.” She threatens the cop again, and then a decision is made to take Brooke to the hospital, where she is given a sedative. Then, they bring her back to the police station. As they strap Brooke into the police car, you can see that she’s half bald, having pulled out a lot of her hair during her meltdown. It always amuses me to watch cops put seatbelts on people. They’re usually very loose and basically useless. Seems like a waste of time.
Meanwhile, the bomb team continued searching for bombs at the airport. Six hours after Brooke’s report, the team determines there weren’t any bombs. Then, poor Jason is allowed out of handcuffs, as the cops realize he’s a victim.
Poor Jason. What an awful ordeal for him. And then he gets lectured by the cops for wanting to preserve his rights.
I’m not going to give a blow by blow of the above video, except to state that I really empathize with Jason. He seems like a pretty decent and normal guy. Brooke is attractive, friendly, and charismatic. I’m sure she came across as kind of cool to him, all the way in Indiana. He came to New Mexico, looking for a good time.
My only quibble with Jason is that he apparently had sex with Brooke. I don’t know how well he knew her before this visit, but my guess is that he didn’t know her very well at all. He was disarmed by her friendliness and intelligence. Then, when he let his guard down and got intimate, he saw that very scary side of her…
Apparently, she had wanted him to stay in her house. He didn’t want to stay, for obvious reasons. While he was at the hotel, she sent him text messages, then called him. When he didn’t react the way she wanted him to react, she took vengeance by calling in the fake bomb threat. This is why I think she might have BPD, because people with BPD often have extreme abandonment issues that cause them to behave in irrational ways.
Also, consider that Brooke has a locked fence, and several dogs… at least one of which is a pit bull. That, to me, indicates someone with a potential history of sexual abuse. She clearly doesn’t feel safe in her home and feels the need to keep things locked up securely. In that sense, maybe jail is the right place for her… but I do pity her dogs. Obviously, she loves them, but she’s not mentally stable enough to care for them properly, just by virtue of her decision to do what she did to Jason, and anyone hoping to fly into or out of Roswell, New Mexico.
Unfortunately, both Bill and I know all too well how dealing with these Cluster B types can end. He was married to a woman not unlike Brooke, although thankfully, she never sicced the police on him.
The cop in the interview video is super annoying, because he lectures Jason about how, if he’d just told them everything from the beginning, he could have avoided the ass pain. But having seen many bodycam videos on YouTube, I know that you really can’t trust cops not to fuck things up badly. The cop should have been more respectful of Jason, and his desire to preserve his rights. Cops are not friends.
Case in point… recently, a woman was falsely arrested due to a mixup caused by a Flock camera. She spent 13 days in jail because of mistaken identity. That poor woman will never forget that degrading and traumatizing experience.
This case is absolutely terrifying. What if she hadn’t been able to afford a lawyer?
The whole thing between Brooke and the cops is surreal. She seems to enjoy the attention they give her, and vacillates between being cooperative and combative. She’s also very manipulative. When I see her, I see someone who really needs a competent psychiatrist and appropriate medications, rather than a jail cell. But then, I am sure Brooke will be in good company in the Big House. Our correctional system, unfortunately, is full of mentally ill folks who commit crimes, rather than truly criminal types.
And the same system causes mental illnesses by falsely detaining and arresting people, like the woman in the video immediately above. My heart goes out to her. What a frightening ordeal!
Anyway… it’s time I wrapped up this post. Gotta walk the dogs and practice my instruments, since I won’t be home next week. Hope you have a good Monday… and stay out of any hairy or hair raising situations. 😉
It’s a beautiful early fall morning, here in our fancy German house. I’m still ruminating a bit over yesterday, and my brief encounter with MAGA nuts going apoplectic over a New York cat rescue’s decision to omit MAGA supporters from its pool of qualified adopters. I wrote about my encounter with Cheryl Ann yesterday. I was later confronted by a woman named Tiffany.
To her credit, Tiffany was more gentle and less profane in her approach to me. She asked me what I’m sure she believes was a reasonable question. I’m not going to go back and look at her actual comment now, because I don’t want to fall down a rabbit hole. But basically, her question was, “Why is it desirable to stop ‘good’ people from giving rescue animals ‘loving’ homes?”
I explained to Tiffany that I, personally, don’t believe that all Republicans are inherently bad people who harm pets. However, I do believe that the operator of Itty Bitty City Kitties has the right to screen applications and choose the applicants she deems best qualified to adopt cats from her rescue. She’s not discriminating against anything a person can’t change. A person can change their political beliefs.
My guess is that if she was not allowing liberals to adopt, a lot of the MAGA crowd would support the cat rescue’s right to do business with whomever she chooses. And if the rescue had a policy against allowing Nazis to adopt, people would be very understanding about that, too. For good reason, most decent folks don’t think Nazis are reputable people, right?
Well… to many people who are not caught up in the MAGA cult, the similarities between Naziism and MAGA are pretty close. Naturally, people who are MAGA cultists don’t see it that way… but in my experience, people who celebrate the MAGA mindset aren’t much into studying or reading… or critical thinking. 🤨 They don’t realize that Trump has a lot in common with Hitler, and the MAGA movement is pretty similar to the Nazi movement in Germany. All one needs to do to realize this, is read up on history… or even check out some footage from World War II.
To be fair, a lot of people are working so much that they don’t have time for deep thinking or learning new things. Of course, that’s by design. If you’re too busy trying to keep the lights on, you don’t have time to ponder things, or notice leaders who are out of control and destroying the country.
And if you are a person with a shred of decency within you, maybe it’s too unpleasant or uncomfortable to think about people in full, hard restraints on chartered planes, flying for many hours to countries where they have no connections, to be dumped into the custody of some other regime that is being paid with our tax dollars to deal with them. This is all done at the behest of the US government, headed by Trump.
Maybe it’s easier to just assume that anyone who gets “rolled up” by ICE is in the wrong. It’s simpler to turn a blind eye to the plight of a man, shot in the neck by ICE, taken to a detention facility with a bullet still lodged in his neck, with not even so much as the simplest pain medications to ease the agony.
MAGA cultists are usually the same people who insist that a developing embryo should have more rights than the already born woman whose body is nurturing it. They’re the same people who wail about “murder” of a developing fetus, and cheer when a woman gets arrested for “improperly disposing of a body” after an early miscarriage. They insist that women are getting proper medical care for ectopic pregnancies and miscarriages, even though evidence shows that more women are dying because doctors are too afraid to treat them for pregnancy complications that result in fetal death. Doctors don’t want to risk their right to practice medicine, or even their freedom, so they wait until the woman is critically ill before treating her.
Many MAGA supporters will champion the unborn, but they can’t spare a single thought for sentient human beings who are being brutalized by Trump’s regime. And they don’t understand why people, who are absolutely horrified by the racist and inhumane policies of the Trump regime, wouldn’t want to trust Trump’s supporters with a cat or a dog. After all, they’re not technically the ones actually brutalizing brown people. They’re just supporting the people who’ll do that in their stead. 🤷♀️
I truly don’t believe that some MAGA followers ever think about any of this stuff. Some of them are just voting the way they were taught to vote. They don’t take the time to read about atrocities. They’re doing what they’ve always done… and not giving it a second thought. They can’t broaden their perspectives. They don’t have time, or they lack the intellectual capacity… or both of those conditions exist together. If they do think about it, they brush it aside, and think about more pressing matters… like what to have for lunch.
I know some Republicans who are basically decent people. They really do love their cats, dogs, and children. But they support leaders who truly are vile people, and they either can’t or won’t demand reforms. So, this terrible time in history continues apace.
Yesterday, I saw a post about an Iranian singer named Parastoo Ahmadi, who is going to be flogged 74 times for performing without a headscarf on YouTube. I took a quick look at the comments, and many came from people who are obviously American Republicans. They were calling the punishment “medieval”, “barbaric”, and “inhumane.” More than a couple of them were warning that the Muslim leaders who have been elected in the United States will try to introduce Sharia Law to our predominantly Christian US culture.
I noticed that many of the people who were commenting didn’t seem to realize that there are different shades of Islam, just as there are different flavors of Christianity. A lot of them seemed to lump everyone from the Middle East and other predominantly Islamic countries into one big group. They didn’t seem to understand that Iranians aren’t Arabs, or that people from Morocco aren’t the same as people from Saudi Arabia. There was an assumption that they’re all evil people, hopelessly stuck in the 7th century.
These same folks are probably giddy about the fact that 50 year old Christa Pike, who has been sitting on death row in Tennessee for about 30 years, is likely going to be executed in a few days. Now… don’t get me wrong. Pike is definitely guilty of her crime. She doesn’t belong out of prison for her part of the murder committed when she was 18 years old. But she was not the only one involved in the crime, nor was she even the one who committed the worst of it.
Pike’s boyfriend at the time, Tadaryl Shipp, beat, raped, tortured, and murdered Colleen Slemmer. And Shipp didn’t get the death penalty. He was only 17 when he committed the crime, so he got life in prison, with the possibility of parole. He’s lucky he wasn’t in Virginia. They probably would have executed him a long time ago. Thankfully, Virginia has since abolished capital punishment. But how is it justice that Shipp will continue to breathe, while Pike gets killed by the state? And, either way, why would you cheer about someone being executed, even if you think the punishment is just?
I certainly don’t agree with the Iranians flogging Parastoo Ahmadi. I think it’s cruel and inappropriate. But I also think that executing Christa Pike is cruel and inappropriate. I’ve seen lots of MAGA folks cheering on Pike’s execution, just as they cheer when someone with brown skin gets terrorized by ICE. They practically get sexually aroused by the prospect of executions, deportations, and other punishments. Then they claim Islam is inhumane and barbaric… but I can’t see much difference between “Islamic justice”, and their brand of “Christian justice.” As an American who grew up in the 70s and 80s, I fail to see why religion should even be part of modern politics.
A lot of MAGA folks were all for anything the late political pundit Charlie Kirk said. I remember one of the first video clips I heard from Kirk was about his proposal for punishing “pedophiles”. He said they should be publicly and gruesomely executed, and children should watch. And… this is the kind of thing that goes on in places like Saudi Arabia! He said it would make his day to watch such a thing. It could be corporate sponsored, and a rite of passage for children to witness it.
I’m certainly no fan of child molestation… but I don’t think stopping it is as simple as threatening everyone with gruesome executions. You’re dealing with a hardwired sexual orientation within someone’s psyche… and at this point in time, there is precious little that can be done to treat pedophiles… at least not anything that would be considered ethical or humane.
This is not to say that child molesters shouldn’t be taken out of society, but more to state that most of them likely can’t control their perversions. Delighting in torturing and publicly executing them is wicked. Making children watch the torture and execution, which would then likely cause them to suffer nightmares, is equally wicked.
But Kirk’s followers— MAGA fans— totally ate that shit up with a spoon. They were all for obliterating a human being publicly, and making kids watch it. As if having the kids watch such a thing would serve as a grim lesson that would steer them away from abusing children, rather than simply giving them psychological trauma. If that was the case, we would have figured out what to do about the pedophilia problem centuries ago. 🤬
Do you see where I’m going with this?
MAGA cultists are, at best, willfully ignorant people who lack perspective and critical thinking skills. At worst, they’re inhumane, racist, and hateful. All you have to do is watch their reactions whenever anyone proposes a violent “punishment” or harm toward people they either outright hate, or just don’t understand. They lack basic respect or empathy for living, breathing, sentient human beings. So why would we trust them with vulnerable, traumatized, defenseless pets?
The Itty Bitty City Kitties cat rescue seeks responsible, mature, kind, and empathic people to adopt their cats. I don’t think that’s an unreasonable policy. People who respond to their criteria by being hateful, immature, derisive, and profane are simply showing that they are incapable of meeting the most basic standards for adopting from that rescue.
The Itty Bitty City Kitties is also under no obligation to allow assholes to adopt their cats. 🤷♀️ Cussing out the adoption coordinator is not a good look, if one wants to seem like they can provide a “good, loving home.” And telling me “fuck you”, because I express support– especially when I wasn’t even commenting to you– is a sign that you’re not someone I’d ever even want to meet, let alone trust with taking care of a cat. 🙄
Aside from that– I reiterate– there is NO SHORTAGE of pet rescues nationwide, looking for people to adopt their animals. Simply go to one of those rescues, if you want to adopt a cat and also worship Trump. The fact that people can’t just do that, is yet another sign that these folks are not thinkers. 🤷♀️
Also… there are other Itty Bitty cat rescues who are caught in the crossfire of this mess. They are not political at all, and they could use your support, too. Why not visit them, and send them some money, and just let the rescue in New York run things their way? It’s not like they’re drag queens who want to read stories to your children. 🤔
Happy Saturday, blog fans. Bill and I slept in this morning, because he had a very long day yesterday. I wrote more about what he did in the travel blog, but suffice to say, he was up at 2:30 AM on Friday, and didn’t get to bed until about 10:00 PM or so… I really don’t know. We were at the wine stand until about 8:00, and then we came home and enjoyed some music.
A couple of days ago, I wrote a post about a cat rescue in New York called Itty Bitty City Kitties. In that post, I expressed my support for the rescue, and its new policy of not allowing MAGA enthusiasts to adopt their cats. Initially, I didn’t agree with their decision. But then when I read the rescue’s reasons for their policy, and then I saw proof of where it was coming from, I realized that they aren’t wrong to do what they’re doing.
A lot of MAGA folks really are antisocial, immature, and downright batshit crazy, and they prove it by the way they behave online. If you look at the actual criteria for pet adoption, there is usually an expectation of basic decency, maturity, responsibility, and empathy toward other living beings. And a lot of MAGA enthusiasts are just fine with treating other human beings like shit. 🤷♀️
All you have to do to see this phenomenon in action is go on any social media post about ICE. You’ll see people dropping hearts, laughs, and likes on stories about ICE beating up, cruelly restraining, and even killing people. They mostly support this treatment toward people of color, but they are also okay with citizens being beaten or even murdered in the street, if they decide that person was getting in the way of the “mission”… which to me, just looks like straight up racism.
I also made a video on my YouTube channel mentioning the Itty Bitty City Kitties. I didn’t indicate what the video was about in its title, precisely because I didn’t want to deal with MAGA enthusiasts polluting my comment section with character assassinations and abusive remarks. Life is tough enough these days without being insulted by random creeps.
Maybe the guy who left me his steaming load of hate was just reacting to my thumbnail…
Nevertheless, I did get a hate comment last night. I saw it after we got back from the wine stand. A man unloaded a vile tirade at me, referring to me as “liberal scum.” I deleted the comment and shadow banned the guy, who really must have been offended by my decision to talk about this case for a couple of minutes. I mean… way to prove the rescue right! 😳
I just went back to the rescue’s page, because I was thinking about making a list of qualities that most rescues look for in potential adopters. But then I noticed I got a comment from someone named “Cheryl Ann”. She has a couple of tabbies on her profile pic. She was hateful, so I decided to respond with reason.
I don’t think I was too harsh, but I doubt she’ll appreciate my response.
Now… I’m not saying that liberals don’t have their problems. They do. I’m not saying that liberals can’t be hateful and mean. They can. But when you respond with hatred to someone who has the idea that your politics make you hateful, well… you’re kind of proving their point, aren’t you?
Again, at first, I had a negative response to this rescue’s policy. Until the Trump era, I really did feel like people should be allowed to vote the way they wished. In fact, I felt like politics should be private, like they used to be before social media infected everything.
It used to be that Republicans were basically normal people who at least pretended to be humane and decent toward others. In the Trump era of the Republican Party, I’ve observed naked racism, sexism, and a complete lack of empathy toward other human beings. I have seen outright hatred on display.
Even Cheryl Ann, up above, went into a rage filled tizzy over my comment to the person running Itty Bitty City Kitties. I wasn’t commenting to Cheryl Ann. I didn’t attack her. Cheryl Ann attacked me, simply for expressing my opinion and support. She could have just kept scrolling, but instead, she lashed out at me.
I’m not saying I don’t sometimes lash out at others, myself. But if your argument is that you offer “loving homes” to animals, maybe you shouldn’t be openly hateful to human beings.
If that’s how Cheryl Ann behaves towards human strangers, how does she treat animals who upset her? Does she cuss at them? Scream at them? Kick or hit them? Her behavior toward me was unhinged, uncalled for, and abusive. It does beg the question of how she behaves towards the defenseless. It also makes me wonder if she’s got anger issues, a mental illness, or maybe substance abuse problems.
Now… I do know some MAGA folks who are perfectly lovely pet owners. I don’t actually believe that all Trump supporters are abusive to pets or children. And I am aware that there are MANY pets that need good homes, and many Republicans are certainly capable of offering decent homes to pets.
However, today’s Trump style Republicans mostly DO support politicians whose policies are abusive and cruel to other people and animals. Read up on how deportees are treated, as they are forcibly relocated to countries where they have no ties. Learn about how ICE detainees are treated– including pregnant women, babies, and children. These are HUMAN BEINGS.
Besides… as I pointed out in my previous post about this, many MAGA supporters are all in favor of allowing MAGA supporting businesses to run things exactly as they see fit. They’re perfectly fine with Donald Trump doing whatever he wants with no limits. He can say whatever vile thing he wants, violate the Constitution, break laws, discriminate to his heart’s content, cause chaos, and basically act like a total asshole to everyone. They’re just splendid with that. 🤷♀️
But… a woman who runs a small cat rescue in New York City… a rescue from which they’d never even consider adopting a pet, anyway… well, she has no right to discriminate against them. 🙄 She’s not allowed to set a policy against MAGA adopters, many of whom openly display hostile behaviors that really should prevent them from adopting pets who might have had traumatic pasts.
MAGA cultists seem to lack perspective, and everything goes one way with them. They accuse people of being “snowflakes”, while they abuse people on their own spaces for daring to express their opinions and set policies for their own businesses.
Moreover, even though the MAGAts have everything they voted for– POTUS, House, Senate, Supreme Court– it’s still NOT ENOUGH for them. They can’t simply enjoy their successes and live and let live. They can’t have a good natured sense of humor. They have to be snarky and cruel. They also have to be hateful and belittling to anyone who doesn’t agree with them! What will finally make them happy? The mind boggles.
Anyway… I have a headache now, so I think I’ll close this post. Maybe I’ll order one of the charity t-shirts Itty Bitty City Kitties is selling. Cheryl Ann’s nasty and uncalled for response to me has inspired me to put my money where my mouth is. It’s a really cute shirt, too. 🤷♀️ As you might know, I like any garment that has a middle finger on display. 😁
By the way… I am STILL not a registered Democrat. But maybe it’s time I became one. 🙄 I don’t ever want to be lumped in with people who support Donald Trump.
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