Author Archives

eaglehttps://sunlightonthewater.wordpress.com
eagle's avatar

Philosophy of Life

by

Cary Grant and Sophia Loren starred in a movie called “Houseboat”.

The script heavily played on Sophia’ figure and was a little uncomfortable in parts with how much it played on her.

There was plenty of sexist comments in the movie which didn’t sit well with me, but there were some moments that showed Sophia had a brain–she invented things to help around the house.  One was a paint sprayer attached to a long pole so that the trim on the houseboat they occupied could be painted.

In the midst of the sexist stuff was this gem:

Grant and his “son” Paul Peterson, were at odds with one another because Grant was always down on him.  (Grant was separated from his wife when she died in a car accident and the children hadn’t seen him on a regular basis, so their relationships were strained.)

Loren had implored Grant to lay off the kid and try to talk to him.  Peterson’s character is fishing off the side of the boat.  And Grant comes to him.  During the conversation, Grant tries to explain death to him.  He had a pitcher of water and tells his son to make it “disappear” (like death).  Peterson pours it into the river.  Grant says it’s not really gone, but is now part of the river.  Then Peterson pours it onto the boat.  Grant waits a moment, and the Peterson says “Oh, I get it.  It evaporates and then becomes part of the clouds, and then becomes rain.”    Then Grant says “Everything’s constantly changing.  Our souls leave our bodies and we go back into God’s Universe for the security of being a part of all life, all nature.  So for all we know, that life is very beautiful…”

Wow. In the midst of this non-serious movie was this great moment of depth.

 

China Syndrome

by

… they lied…as DN reported before.

I wonder how much of that radiation made its way to the U.S. via the ocean and the air currents?

Here’s a link on the subject…if they detected it as far as Massachusetts and North Carolina, you can bet there was much more radiation over the western half of the States than is being admitted.  I wonder how many folks have been diagnosed with thyroid cancer since the accident?  And if they are diagnosed, how many doctors are doing detective work to find the cause?  My bet is that they will blame the patient or will not even recognize thyroid issues and instead diagnose the patient with psychosomatic illness?  Nah, that can’t happen…/snark.

 

Around the Fort

by

(SORT OF A PERSONAL BLOG–LOCAL STUFF)

It was announced today that Bob Dylan is coming to Fort Wayne on August 21st–he’ll be playing at the downtown baseball stadium.  Sounds like a nice time.

~~~~

FW has festivals coming out the wazoo–

Right now, there’s Ribfest going on, and in about a month, there’s the biggest –the Three Rivers Festival.  In September, the Johnny Appleseed Festival, celebrating the folk hero who planted apple orchards.  It’s kind of an “old settlers” festival.  I haven’t been to any of the festivals, so I can’t really comment on them from an experience perspective.

~~~~~~~~~

In the local news, I see the link “Batman needs a home”…intrigued, I clicked on it:http://www.journalgazette.net/article/20120615/BLOGS22/120619763/0/FRONTPAGE

Haha…not what I was expecting. 🙂

He’s a little cutie, eh?  He looks almost exactly like a kitty my son brought home one day.

The story goes like this:  My son used to go jogging in the area we used to live in, and he said this kitten followed him home one day.  The oldest story in the world, folks, and I fell for it….:)  The truth came out later–he said that the kitten meowed at him, and he was afraid it was going to get hit, so he picked it up and brought it home.  Not that I minded.  The other cat we had, Sammy, did mind, however. She had an issue with sharing. Haha.

Anyway, we took Zeus in and he was apparently much older than we thought–he wasn’t taken care of and it was apparent that someone had dumped him (we lived in the country).  He was such a character–full of life and such a little imp.  He was the first cat that I ever allowed to go outside on a regular basis.  All my previous kitties had been housecats…but Zeus–he heard the beat of a different drummer, as they say, and it would have killed his spirit to be indoors.  He loved the freedom of running around outdoors.  I remember once when i went outside to tend the little garden I had (organic, of course), and I played a little game of hide-and-seek with him–I “hid” behind a tree, and to his delight, would pounce when he would come running past.  Heh.

His love of outdoors was his downfall, however.  One morning, after I had taken the kids to school, he was at the back door and he didn’t look right.  He was dragging his rear end lower than normal.  I didn’t see anything, like blood on him, but I knew something was wrong, so I took him to the vet.  The vet said he was struck by a car….which didn’t make sense because there was no dirt or blood on him or marks of any kind.

So, I took him home and watched as the poor thing got worse.  I called the vet’s office and got the assistant.  When I told her I thought he was worse, and that he was panting from pain, she said that there was nothing we could do for them–you couldn’t give cats anything for pain.  I just had to wait for him to work through it.

The next day, he ate a little so I was optimistic that he was going to recover.  However, as the day wore on, his status grew shaky. He wanted to be let out, but I refused.  I would realize later that he knew he was dying and he wanted to be alone.

The next morning, just before 6:00 a.m., I heard him meow in my bedroom.  I thought he was doing better–what I didn’t realize was that he was crying out before he passed.  My daughter said “Mom, something’s not right with Zeus’ eyes.”  The light had gone out of his eyes.  We cried for the little imp that was with us only a short time and buried him in the garden that he loved.

I strongly suspect that a crotchety old neighbor hit Zeus on the back and that was what caused his death.  Zeus had always been afraid to come near me when I was sweeping the back patio area.  I couldn’t understand why…and the only thing that makes sense is that someone hit him with a broom.  My neighbor detested me because I stood up to him on a few occasions when he was trying to bully me and he hated Zeus, too.  I wouldn’t be surprised to know that he had struck Zeus.  It’s just a hypothesis…I’ll never really know what happened.  Rest in peace, little man.

 

Fairy Tales by the World Bank

by

According to this article: http://www.thenational.ae/news/uae-news/education/poor-education-unemployment-caused-arab-spring-claims-world-bank

… World Bank would like to blame the Arab Spring on the lack of college education…while saying that unemployment could be helped by education.

Yeah….that isn’t playing out so well over across the pond, where unemployment of college educated folks is the highest ever, according to this blog:http://www.econmatters.com/2012/05/first-time-ever-most-of-unemployed-are.html

Although I don’t agree with the author’s assertion that the “solution” is to do away with college loans (can you say rightwing?), but rather, to…you know, this will sound crazy….but the solution isn’t to deny college education, but to actually change the economic policies by Friedman economists who believe that unemployment is actually good for the country…(as James Medoff and Andrew Harless asserted in their book, The Indebted Society.)

Friedman and his followers believe in a convoluted policy called “Natural Rate of Unemployment” which embraces the neocon mindset of greed is good.

Here’s a great blog on the subject.

From the blog below the first:

…the whole story is starting to feel like a comedy routine: yet again the economy slides, unemployment soars, banks get into trouble, governments rush to the rescue — but somehow it’s only the banks that get rescued, not the unemployed.

[italics mine]

~~~~~~~~~

You know, whenever I read the financial theories, I come back to the thought that the way that we do business is set up to go against the best interests of Mother Earth: use up resources without giving back.

That’s a self-defeating proposition.

The bigger question is how can we have jobs or some form of support that is in tune with nature?  Is that possible?