February Week 2, 2005

To know how to say what others only know how to think is what makes men poets or sages; and to dare to say what others only dare to think makes men martyrs or reformers - or both.

We took Autumn down to the UCLA Center for Cerebral Palsy... not the imposing edifice I had envisioned, as a matter of fact I think you could put the whole thing in a two car garage, with room to spare... They assured me that they had much more space in another building... I hope so. There were two college kids and a Doctor/Professor the College kids were trying to pretend they knew what they were doing and the D/P was acting very assured and competent.

They brought out a tricycle for Autumn to try out and then did a Three Stooges imitation trying to move the seat back so Autumn could pedal with out having her knees hit the handlebar-ish apparatus. This thing has pedals for the feet and for the hands, you have to learn how to how to steer and pedal at the same time... I am not as thrilled with it as I had hoped to be but Autumn is happy with it and tries very hard to make it work.

I took it to her school so she can use it on a playground, our property is a little to bumpy and hilly for me to feel real comfortable letting her loose on it.. At school she will have adaptive PE and Physical therapy sessions and an aide to help her with it.

Nature can provide for the needs of people; [she] can't provide for the greed of people.

The kids in school, Christy is taking a van load of kids from Calie's class down to Medieval Times Banquet Hall and Arena, I am home alone... being unproductive... I was never much of a 'self motivator' but I used to be able to rouse my lethargic butt to do what needed to be done without a whole lot effort but lately I can't seem to get myself into gear at all... if it wasn't for getting the kids up and ready for school I'd probably sleep to noon.

As I stood before the gates I realized that I never want to be as certain about anything as were the people who built this place.

I think Mr. Rothschild [below] is right... The Democrats have no place to go but up and maintaining the status quo is a surefire way to guarantee that they will lose in 2008. I Like Dean, the only thing I don't like is that he has promised not to run for president if he is elected head of the DNC.

About mistakes, it's funny. You've got to make your own; and not only that, if you try to keep people from making theirs, they get mad.

Christy is teaching today, she will be back in the mid afternoon. I appear to be coming down with something and I have an ROF to attend...

Christy gave me some stuff and I feel better, the ROF was pleasant, not a big turnout...

Who will protect us when our government breaks the law? Our government is torturing people in our name, they are kidnapping people and taking them to foreign countries. they are imprisoning people without charging them. Our soldiers are killing innocent men, women and children, destroying cities... all in our name. It makes me sick in my heart... there is no justification for the pain and suffering we are causing.

A man whose axe was missing suspected his neighbor's son. The boy walked like a thief, looked like a thief, and spoke like a thief. But the man found his axe while he was digging in the valley, and the next time he saw his neighbor's son, the boy walked, looked and spoke like any other child.

Rain... lots of it... the road is cut in several places and it's an adventure getting out of here.

More stories of torture, kidnapping, & murder BY AMERICAN GIs!!!! plans to precipitously invade Iran and Syria... more boys killed. My instinct is to just drop out, stop reading the Op-Ed stuff, not listen to the radio or read the newspaper till this time 2009... I had high hopes that the thinking sane people were going to seize the day last November but, for whatever reason, they didn't... The only hope is that W will do something so egregious that the peasants light their torches, grab their pitchforks, rise up and storm the castle...

I just read "View from the Cop" I think the guy is hilarious...

Who does not see that the same authority which can establish Christianity, in exclusion of all other religions, may establish with the same ease any particular sect of Christians, in exclusion of all other sects?

Christy and Cindy went to church in Palmdale. I took the kids to run errands and got some fast-food.

A laid back day, it was cool this morning but warmed up to almost 70 mid-afternoon...

Christian and Monica have discovered chat-rooms and are spending a lot of time chatting with their friends... the up side being that they are honing their typing skills, the down side is that I have to spend some time monitoring who they are chatting with...

A child with an intense capacity for feeling can suffer to a degree that is beyond any degree of adult suffering, because imagination, ignorance, and the conviction of utter helplessness are untempered by reason or by experience.

Cindy went for a walk at about 11:00... by noon we were getting worried, I had to take the other girls to a birthday party at 13:00, I looked for Cindy on the way down but didn't see her, I called Christy told her I couldn't find her and Christy went looking, I went in to Palmdale to drop the girls off and hurried back trying to get a hold of her on her cell phone or at home but she didn't answer. I turned onto Shannon Valley Road and saw a police cruiser in my driveway... not good.

When I pulled up they said they were calling in the helicopter... I went back up into the canyon and saw "B" coming down, he was sobbing, he was very concerned about Cindy and was doubly upset because Christy had asked him to go with her and he had refused... I looked and saw no sign of her.

When I got back home the Sheriff waved at me and yelled that Cindy was on the phone...

According to Cindy the dogs ran away from her and she chased them into the houses down below... The dogs thought they were playing a game and as long as Cindy ran after them they would run away. Dot ran into some lady's yard and started barking at her dog, she got mad and threatened Cindy then threatened to get a gun and shoot Dot. Cindy has a multitude of problems, one of them is autism. Cindy sees the world like a 5 year old and takes everything literally, the lady headed toward her house saying she was getting her gun and she was going to call the "Animal Patrol" (Cindy's words)... Cindy picked up Dot, who weighs about 70 pounds, and ran as fast as she could up the muddy street. She eventually ran into a ladies barn and crying hysterically... it took the lady quite a while to get her calmed down and when she was able to get our phone number out of her she called us. Cindy had no idea where she was. I finally found the place and she was very glad to see me, she was a mess, she had fallen in the mud and her hand was cut slightly from being bitten by one of the dogs, I put all four filthy dogs and Cindy into the car and took them home. I told her the Sheriff wanted to talk to her to be sure she was OK but she assumed she was in trouble and was afraid to talk to him...

I want to find out who that lady was who threatened Cindy... I guess a person has the right to keep people off their property, I do think there are laws about shooting dogs. I know that some people get excited and lose perspective. It is possible even probable that the woman didn't realize she was dealing with a handicapped person... I don't care... Neighbors aren't supposed to threaten each other with guns, or cops or anything... I know that when I was growing up there were people in the neighborhood that you learned to stay the hell away from but they were the exception... they were people for whom the word Neighbor was a term used to describe proximity not attitude. There were neighbors who would make you pay for the window you broke but would then hand you back the ball and say "Be more careful next time" Then there were the neighbors who would yell at you and then yell at your parents... they would call the police if your walked on their lawn.

Being a Neighbor these days is not like it was when I was a kid... Today they would as soon sue you as look at you. I have one neighbor who is old fashioned like me and we have gotten along well for 20 plus years now... I have another who seems to thrive on being confrontational... these days there are more of the antagonistic type around than the mellow... I am afraid the whole country is buying into the 'me against the world' mentality. It seems like more and more folks want to consider every man their enemy until they pass some kind of loyalty test. If you are the wrong color, the wrong age, the wrong religion, the wrong politics, the wrong nationality, the wrong gender, the wrong sexual preference, the wrong part of the country, the wrong social strata, the wrong language the wrong ideology, if you differ in any way from ME then you are the enemy.

I see that the American Nazi Party, calling themselves The National Alliance, has picked up on this trend too. From the LATimes: "The local chapter spent $1,500 on MetroLink ads in St. Louis last month, plastering nearly every commuter train car in the city with a blue-and-white placard declaring "The Future belongs to us!" and listing the group's Web site and phone number. The same chapter bought airtime on local talk radio last fall, urging whites to unite and fight for the survival of "white America." ... I will never understand what motivates these pathetic bullies... but they are everywhere and becoming more conspicuous every day.