Lives in a Shoe

Therapy Pet?

More of a concern is the growing trend of passengers faking emotional support needs and gaming the system to get around paying exorbitant pet fees. Service animals are free, while shipping pets can cost hundreds of dollars.

SOAR president Captain Tom Bunn, a former commercial pilot who now helps people manage their fear of flying, says it's all too easy to get a therapist to write a note. And websites are popping up that provide emotional support vests and necessary letters for fees ranging from $59 to $200.

The article has a not-to-be-missed photo of this turkey being pushed through the airport in a wheelchair. Made my day.

 

 

Sanders a Hit with Millennial Women

Young, idealistic -- some of us had hoped to teach them to discount differences between genders, races... and maybe it worked.  But the Ready for Hillary bunch with their emotional pull of "Hillary -- Because Vagina" resonates more strongly for some Boomers than for their daughters.

Taryn Hogarth, 22, a University of South Dakota student, said the history-making prospect of a woman president is a deciding factor for her mother but not her

She trusts Sanders more than Clinton to get money out of politics and reform the criminal justice system. Though Sanders has served in Congress since 1990, she still sees him as “a fresh face” who makes her “excited for our government.”

“I would love to have a woman president, but I’d like the right woman president,” she said. “I want this to be based on the ideas and what they’re going to do for our country.”

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Apparently they LOVE his promise of free tuition and single payer healthcare and a pony for everybody but Bernie is unwilling or unable to explain how to pay for any of it despite gentle questions from Bill Maher . 

Trump: Our Country Needs My Anger

Mark Steyn:

...they seem to have accepted the British spin that there's been no breach of the Geneva Convention because the Marines and sailors weren't official prisoners of war, just freelance kidnap victims you can have what sport you wish with.

 This is marginally less insane than the Biden-Kerry line that illegally seizing foreign sailors, forcing them to their knees and to submit to the dress codes of someone else's religion, using them for propaganda videos and making them issue public apologies testifies to how the new Iranian-American friendship is just peachy and going gangbusters.

In fact, the Iranians are doing exactly what they've always done. They got their nuclear deal, and it's business as usual. The only difference is that, a decade ago, they did it to America's allies but they never quite dared to do it to America itself.

Trump Is angry?  Yeah he is.  And we should be angry too.

IRAN WARNS US OF WAR – Missiles Are Locked on US Aircraft Carrier USS Truman

Playing Obama and Kerry for fools. And we are about to deliver them $150 billion of our money as a thanks for signing that paper.

Those Magic Changes

DOES NOT get any better than this.  Sha Na Na, and especially Johnny Contardo, thank you.

 

It's still familiar to me
Sends a thrill right through me

Wikipedia has an explanation of those magic changes, the chords known as the "50s Progression" along with a list of some of the songs in which it appears.  (Bob Marley?)

Okay.  I have no idea how to stop the Youtube video after that one song.  So -- there could be worse things than bunches of Sha Na Na -- but it's like falling into a black hole and wondering if you'll ever emerge.  There is somewhere in this video compilation a version of "Unchained Melody".  I've never heard it arranged like that and if you decide to look for it on there, I'll bet you cannot keep yourself from smiling.  Looks like they had fun singing it and I had fun listening.  Thanks, fellas.

 

Guns, Discussion

A few words with Charles Cobb, author of "This Nonviolent Stuff'll Get You Killed: How Guns Made the Civil Rights Movement". NPR, ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. 

Cobb says guns were kept on farms for hunting, for pest-control and to repel white vigilantes. Even non-violent participants in the civil rights movement, including Martin Luther King for a time, kept guns at home to protect their families. In the mid-'60s, Malcolm X responded to a rumor that the Nation of Islam was urging blacks to buy guns by reminding the press they were legally entitled to do that.

 

Country Living Expo

The Country Living Expo is just around the corner. From city dwellers to farmers we have 170 classes in one day to choose from. Would you like an explosion of color all summer long in your landscape, an introduction to dry curing salami, sharpening tools, small engine maintenance, quilting, needle felting, curing bacon and making your own prosciutto, seed saving, make your own cheese, raise your own bacon and eggs. So many classes to choose from, fresh baked breakfast, a smoked prime rib lunch or gourmet vegetarian delight, a gym full of vendors, and you're guaranteed to have a great day. We have 58 brand new classes this year. To register go to: http://ext100.wsu.edu/skagit/CountryLivingExpo/

Class List and Descriptions: http://ext100.wsu.edu/skagit/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2014/04/Expo2016class-descriptions12.11.pdf

 

 

Dawkins, Making Sense

He is a bloviating, preening, self-adulating asshat whose opinions glitter for some adolescents.  "For a generation of young atheists Dawkins gave disbelief a thin veneer of intellectual cachet." (Thomas D. Williams) But he makes sense here.

 

 

 

Too Funny

I would love to hear this lady read a story to her kids.  What a flair for dramatic narrative.

 

Beware Yawning Hippos

Tourists see a hippo repeatedly yawn and assume the animal is happy and content. “They are a threat sign,” says Eksteen.

Best to avoid a charging hippo says BBC Earth.

Still, how stinking cute is this baby pygmy hippo?

Mystery Solved