"...if his blood pressure is spiking from fear, his elation at seeing so much more of life makes it worthwhile..." You're as good a study of dogs as you are of people.
I've been lucky to have had dogs in my life for many years and it's easy to see the light in their eyes when they're doing new things with you compared to the lacklustre look when they've not been out for a few days. One little beauty kept me company on runs for 16 years, through jungle and on road and her brown eyes sparkled every day at the thought of what she'd seen or what she was about to see outside the garden walls.
She was a lightweight and so managed to run over 16,000km in that time but her hips started to wear out once she turned 16 and so her last couple of years were spent walking on the beach, then a few hundred metres along the street and later just a few metres around the garden. Then, when she was finally unable to even do that and the light had gone from her eyes, I asked the vet to call in. That was 6 years ago but I still miss her and seeing the elation she felt when running.
If we were to see life with the simplicity that animals do we'd probably be a lot happier.
Watching a treasured pet age is a unique experience. Unlike humans, they largely lack the ability to complain or comment on their infirmities, even though you often know they might be hurting. A friend of mine had a small dog that reached 15 or 16 years old, a sweet old gal that hobbled around like an old woman. She had once been hit by a car, and somehow her "hips" (?) were not properly aligned, and her hind legs were slightly offset from her line of travel. She never whined or complained, but you just knew she had to be feeling her age.
We ourselves had a cat that lived to over 20 years old. By the time she died, she was so blind that she would bump into table legs when she walked underneath them.
JustPlainBill, I did a brief stint in Ensenada, Baja, Mexico. Virtually every morning a man would take his three dogs for a walk on the beach. One of the dogs had only three legs but the pitiful thing frolicked along with the others, oblivious to its infirmity. Many humans (including me) would have been wallowing in self-pity. The three legged little dog seemed to have no ego and (perhaps because of that) no self-pity.
You're doing well and sounding good, Linh. It's like you're back, up from some kind of cyclothymic depressive episode (or maybe the Covid kicked your Asian ass for a longer time than we realize; it took me nearly a month to get out of bed the first time I had that shit). You are yourself become a master of the mundane. Writing ostensibly about nothing, you show us how special it is. Which is EVERYTHING. Which is life. itself. Which is alluring. Which is captivating.
It seems to me that being triggered is some kind of programming, done by the usual mind controlling media, so that when someone hears a word the pre-packaged thought and opinion immediately come to mind. I can't mention the Israel issue to my family any more without being labeled 'Hamas'. You are with us or you are against us - Jewish thinking Linh labels it.
More than a few people are deciding to mention Israel anyway.
'One is about a 9-year-old girl named Juri. She was malnourished, unconscious, and in septic shock when Perlmutter and Sidhwa came upon her at the hospital. They operated immediately, and when they did, they found, among other things, she was missing part of a femur and most of the flesh on one thigh. Her buttocks were cut so severely her pelvic bones were exposed. As they proceeded, maggots fell in clumps from Juri’s body.
“Even if they saved her,” my partner said, “she will live a life of severe disability and constant pain.”'
If you want to talk about "triggers", no one is easier to trigger than the TSA goons if you dare to make the wrong joke or cynical comment.
I looked at your photo of the boy selling nail clippers and key chains. Compared to others I’ve seen, he looks reasonably well put together. The photo seemed to me a brighter version of similar sights I saw in Tijuana back in the early 70s. My visits there while stationed in San Diego as a young man were my first exposure to third world conditions. One memory that has stuck with me was the time I was approached by a really dirty and ragged-looking boy that couldn’t have been more than 5 or 6 years old, selling chewing gum out of a wooden tray slung around his neck.. He was standing in the gutter because I guess he did not dare to stand on the sidewalk. “Chicle, chicle” he would repeat quietly. I saw no evidence nearby of any adult looking out for him.
Although Taipei is a prosperous-looking city, you still find broken-down looking people, often cripples, vending small items from trays outside the MRT stations. My sister-in-law tells us that these people are all controlled by gangsters and that we should not patronize them or give them anything, but I wonder if this is a proper response to their condition. My wife has tried to give them something to eat, but they will not accept it; eventually we heard that their “minders” will abuse them if they accept anything that cannot be “appropriated” from them later.
This is irrelevant to the essay. But I recall reading at that time a regular writer for the NY Times (this was before 2001) R.W. Apple I believe I recall his name to have been. In which he was traveling around France extolling the virtues of French cuisine. Dining on meals that cost several hundred dollars per person per meal.
Mr. Apple in particular and The Times in general were tone deaf to the increasingly seething anger growing into hatred felt by the American people against a privileged ruling class that was completely tone deaf to and out of touch with the increasing hardships of the American working class. I let my subscription lapse shortly after that and shortly after the false flag operation of 9/11, 2001 in which The Times played their obsequious and sycophantic part.
It was than that it became obvious (at least to me, a slow learner ) in what others had already figured out; that America was divided between the "haves" the small 1% ruling class and the "have nots" the 99% working class. Who's work and wealth was increasingly misappropriated by the 1%.
I don't know why this essay reminded me of this? But it did.
{A few months after 9/11, I went into the hardware store across the street from my Philly apartment. “I need a box cutter,” I said to its bearded owner.
“You going to the airport?” he grinned.}
They are politely known as "Airline Sequestration Tools."
Never say, "Well, hi Jack" on any airline...
The athletes at the O's are all vaxxed up to their eyeballs maybe that is what has dumbed them down:
Maybe the CoVidiots will all flock to the nearest sewage treatment plant and have a pool party! Imagine, swimming in a river where the least toxic of pollutants is E. coli...
"...if his blood pressure is spiking from fear, his elation at seeing so much more of life makes it worthwhile..." You're as good a study of dogs as you are of people.
I've been lucky to have had dogs in my life for many years and it's easy to see the light in their eyes when they're doing new things with you compared to the lacklustre look when they've not been out for a few days. One little beauty kept me company on runs for 16 years, through jungle and on road and her brown eyes sparkled every day at the thought of what she'd seen or what she was about to see outside the garden walls.
She was a lightweight and so managed to run over 16,000km in that time but her hips started to wear out once she turned 16 and so her last couple of years were spent walking on the beach, then a few hundred metres along the street and later just a few metres around the garden. Then, when she was finally unable to even do that and the light had gone from her eyes, I asked the vet to call in. That was 6 years ago but I still miss her and seeing the elation she felt when running.
If we were to see life with the simplicity that animals do we'd probably be a lot happier.
Watching a treasured pet age is a unique experience. Unlike humans, they largely lack the ability to complain or comment on their infirmities, even though you often know they might be hurting. A friend of mine had a small dog that reached 15 or 16 years old, a sweet old gal that hobbled around like an old woman. She had once been hit by a car, and somehow her "hips" (?) were not properly aligned, and her hind legs were slightly offset from her line of travel. She never whined or complained, but you just knew she had to be feeling her age.
We ourselves had a cat that lived to over 20 years old. By the time she died, she was so blind that she would bump into table legs when she walked underneath them.
JustPlainBill, I did a brief stint in Ensenada, Baja, Mexico. Virtually every morning a man would take his three dogs for a walk on the beach. One of the dogs had only three legs but the pitiful thing frolicked along with the others, oblivious to its infirmity. Many humans (including me) would have been wallowing in self-pity. The three legged little dog seemed to have no ego and (perhaps because of that) no self-pity.
You're doing well and sounding good, Linh. It's like you're back, up from some kind of cyclothymic depressive episode (or maybe the Covid kicked your Asian ass for a longer time than we realize; it took me nearly a month to get out of bed the first time I had that shit). You are yourself become a master of the mundane. Writing ostensibly about nothing, you show us how special it is. Which is EVERYTHING. Which is life. itself. Which is alluring. Which is captivating.
Write on, dude!
$PAT$ in the 'Proud to be an American Since 1776' t-shirt is hilarious, you're killing me Linh!
It seems to me that being triggered is some kind of programming, done by the usual mind controlling media, so that when someone hears a word the pre-packaged thought and opinion immediately come to mind. I can't mention the Israel issue to my family any more without being labeled 'Hamas'. You are with us or you are against us - Jewish thinking Linh labels it.
More than a few people are deciding to mention Israel anyway.
'One is about a 9-year-old girl named Juri. She was malnourished, unconscious, and in septic shock when Perlmutter and Sidhwa came upon her at the hospital. They operated immediately, and when they did, they found, among other things, she was missing part of a femur and most of the flesh on one thigh. Her buttocks were cut so severely her pelvic bones were exposed. As they proceeded, maggots fell in clumps from Juri’s body.
“Even if they saved her,” my partner said, “she will live a life of severe disability and constant pain.”'
Patrick Lawrence: No More Silence
https://consortiumnews.com/2024/07/27/patrick-lawrence-no-more-silence/
If you want to talk about "triggers", no one is easier to trigger than the TSA goons if you dare to make the wrong joke or cynical comment.
I looked at your photo of the boy selling nail clippers and key chains. Compared to others I’ve seen, he looks reasonably well put together. The photo seemed to me a brighter version of similar sights I saw in Tijuana back in the early 70s. My visits there while stationed in San Diego as a young man were my first exposure to third world conditions. One memory that has stuck with me was the time I was approached by a really dirty and ragged-looking boy that couldn’t have been more than 5 or 6 years old, selling chewing gum out of a wooden tray slung around his neck.. He was standing in the gutter because I guess he did not dare to stand on the sidewalk. “Chicle, chicle” he would repeat quietly. I saw no evidence nearby of any adult looking out for him.
Although Taipei is a prosperous-looking city, you still find broken-down looking people, often cripples, vending small items from trays outside the MRT stations. My sister-in-law tells us that these people are all controlled by gangsters and that we should not patronize them or give them anything, but I wonder if this is a proper response to their condition. My wife has tried to give them something to eat, but they will not accept it; eventually we heard that their “minders” will abuse them if they accept anything that cannot be “appropriated” from them later.
This is irrelevant to the essay. But I recall reading at that time a regular writer for the NY Times (this was before 2001) R.W. Apple I believe I recall his name to have been. In which he was traveling around France extolling the virtues of French cuisine. Dining on meals that cost several hundred dollars per person per meal.
Mr. Apple in particular and The Times in general were tone deaf to the increasingly seething anger growing into hatred felt by the American people against a privileged ruling class that was completely tone deaf to and out of touch with the increasing hardships of the American working class. I let my subscription lapse shortly after that and shortly after the false flag operation of 9/11, 2001 in which The Times played their obsequious and sycophantic part.
It was than that it became obvious (at least to me, a slow learner ) in what others had already figured out; that America was divided between the "haves" the small 1% ruling class and the "have nots" the 99% working class. Who's work and wealth was increasingly misappropriated by the 1%.
I don't know why this essay reminded me of this? But it did.
{A few months after 9/11, I went into the hardware store across the street from my Philly apartment. “I need a box cutter,” I said to its bearded owner.
“You going to the airport?” he grinned.}
They are politely known as "Airline Sequestration Tools."
Never say, "Well, hi Jack" on any airline...
The athletes at the O's are all vaxxed up to their eyeballs maybe that is what has dumbed them down:
Maybe the CoVidiots will all flock to the nearest sewage treatment plant and have a pool party! Imagine, swimming in a river where the least toxic of pollutants is E. coli...