Musings of the Chronologically Challenged™ Fourth Generation

 

Equal Time for Canines
Besides Anna, Elizabeth, and Sara, the felines I refer to occasionally, KJ (who calls Emperor Misha Uncle Misha) lives here with me. I'm not an "either/or" person. Both cats and dogs are wonderful housemates and companions. When the following email came in, it reminded me that my admiration for my canine partner had been neglected lately. Ergo:

Notice to People Who Visit My Home
1. My dog lives here. You don't.
2. If you don't want dog hair on your clothes, stay off the furniture.
3. Yes, she has some disgusting habits. So do I and so do you. What's your point?
4. Of course she smells like a dog.
5. It's her nature to sniff your crotch. Please feel free to sniff hers.
6. I like her a lot better than I like many people.
7. To you she's a dog. To me she's an adopted child who is short, hairy, walks on all fours, and doesn't speak clearly. I have no problem with any of these things.
8. Dogs are different than kids. They eat less; don't ask for money all the time; are easier to train; act like they like you; usually come when called; never drive your car; don't hang out with drug-using friends; don't smoke or drink; don't want the latest fashions; don't wear your clothes; don't need a gazillion dollars for college; and if they get pregnant, you can sell the puppies.
9. Yes, she barks --- that is her job.
10. The same applies to my cats, except they will ignore you -- until you fall asleep.

~~~ from John, New Jersey



Who is Michael Benge?
I don't know either. Maybe just a fig newton of someone's imagination. Or maybe a RNC employee. Anyhow, this came to me in email, undated, but seems to be from a while ago. No citation. And while there's nothing positive here for Sen. Kerry, the DNC has plenty on their web page, if you want to read kudos.

John Kerry's war record:
As Sen. John Kerry, Massachusetts Democrat, considers a bid for the White House, Americans should know a few things about him that he might prefer go unmentioned? and I don't mean his $75 haircuts.

When Mr. Kerry pontificated at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on Veterans Day, a group of veterans turned their backs on him and walked away. They remembered Mr. Kerry as the anti-war activist who testified before Congress during the war, accusing veterans of being war criminals.

The dust jacket of Mr. Kerry's pro-Hanoi book, "The New Soldier," features a photograph of his ragged band of radicals mocking the U.S. Marine Corps Memorial, which depicts the flag-raising on Iwo Jima, with an upside-down American flag. Retired Gen. George S. Patton III charged that Mr. Kerry's actions as an anti-war activist had "given aid and comfort to the enemy," as had the actions of Ramsey Clark and Jane Fonda.

Also, Mr. Kerry lied when he threw what he claimed were his war medals over the White House fence; he later admitted they weren't his. Now they are displayed on his office wall. Long after he changed sides in congressional hearings, Mr. Kerry lobbied for renewed trade relations with Hanoi. At the same time, his cousin C. Stewart Forbes, chief executive for Colliers International, assisted in brokering a $905 million deal to develop a deep-sea port at Vung Tau, Vietnam; an odd coincidence.

As noted in the Inside Politics column of Nov. 14 (Nation), historian Douglas Brinkley is writing Mr. Kerry's biography. Hopefully, he'll include the senator's latest ignominious feat: preventing the Vietnam Human Rights Act (HR2833) from coming to a vote in the Senate, claiming human rights would deteriorate as a result. His actions sent a clear signal to Hanoi that Congress cares little about the human rights for which so many Americans fought and died.

The State Department ranked Vietnam among the 10 regimes worldwide least tolerant of religious freedom. Recently, 354 churches of the Montagnards, a Christian ethnic minority, were forcibly disbanded, and by mid-October, more than 50 Christian pastors and elders had been arrested in Dak Lak province alone.

On Oct. 29, the secret police executed three Montagnards by lethal injection simply for protesting religious repression. The communists are conducting a pogrom against the Montagnards, forcing Christians to drink a mixture of goat's blood and alcohol and renounce Christianity. Thousands have been killed or imprisoned or have just "disappeared." The Montagnards lost one-half of their adult male population fighting for the United States, and without them, there might be thousands more American names on that somber black granite wall at the Vietnam memorial.

As Mr. Kerry contemplates a run for the presidency, people must remember that he has fought harder for Hanoi as an anti-war activist and a senator than he did against the Vietnamese communists while serving in the Navy in Vietnam.

MICHAEL BENGE
Foreign Service officer and former Vietnam POW (1968 to 1973)
Washington, DC


Truisms from Gregus
++A good time to keep your mouth shut is when you're in deep water.
++Anyone who thinks old age is golden must not have had a very exciting youth.
++How come it takes so little time for a child who is afraid of the dark to become a teen-ager who wants to stay out all night?
++Business conventions are important because they demonstrate how many people a company can operate without.
++Why is it that at class reunions you feel younger than everyone else looks?












posted by HCL at 10:46 AM