A Rumor of Heroes

Here’s something I’ve noticed.
Maybe you have, too.

In one paddock is a bachelor band of 5 geldings.
Cisco, seems to be the dominant member of the group. He’s pretty pushy with the other guys. Has that when-you-see-me-coming-step-aside attitude. Doesn’t hesitate to give a nip, if a laying back of ears isn’t sufficient to get the point across.

I’m not making any judgments here. I like Cisco and he likes me. I’m just observing to see what I can learn.

Most people would pick Cisco out as the Alpha horse in that group – until meal time.
Despite Cisco kicking up quite a happy dance when I bring grain out, he DOESN’T eat first. And he doesn’t eat SECOND, either. He eats THIRD.

Buddy gets the first bucket. Buddy is very quiet, shy, even stand-offish. Has had bad experiences with people and rarely lets anyone approach him, though he may occasionally stretch his neck in to grab a bite of apple. I don’t see him horse-play much, though he might when I’m not around. And I don’t recall him being particularly assertive.
But while Cisco might have a go at grabbing somebody else’s bucket, it won’t be Buddy’s. Cisco defers to Buddy, without any action from Buddy that’s discernable to me.

What I find interesting is that the second Bucket goes to Jackson.
Back before Buddy joined this crew, Jackson was in Cisco’s paddock and Cisco was unquestionably the boss. If Cisco wanted a taste of Jackson’s grain, Jackson yielded away from the bucket.
Now, however, Jackson gets bucket number two and Cisco leaves him alone about it.
Why?
Apparently, because Jackson and Buddy have become pals. Jackson keeps Buddy between himself and Cisco and Buddy steps between them, too.

I know it's the common thing for horses to pair up within the herd, to have a “best friend” for grooming, keeping the flies off, and for security. But I wonder whether it’s also true that this team is also usually comprised of a “hero” and a “sidekick.” The hero of the pair seems to stick up for his sidekick and protect him from the more dominant horses picking on him. I’ve seen this in three pairs of horses now, for certain. Others might or might not be the case, I can’t be sure.

I guess this is another reason I prefer horses to humans.

Too bad we don't look out for each other the way some horses do.

sj

NO BAIL-OUT FOR MARVIN

Mon Jan 26, 4:33 PM

BAY CITY, Mich. - A 93-year-old man froze to death inside his home just days after the municipal power company restricted his use of electricity because of unpaid bills, officials said.

Marvin Schur died "a slow, painful death," said Kanu Virani, Oakland County's deputy chief medical examiner, who performed the autopsy.

Neighbours discovered Schur's body on Jan. 17. They said the indoor temperature was below zero Celsius at the time, the Bay City Times reported Monday.

"Hypothermia shuts the whole system down, slowly," Virani said. "It's not easy to die from hypothermia without first realizing your fingers and toes feel like they're burning."

Schur owed Bay City Electric Light & Power more than $1,000 in unpaid electric bills, Bay City manager Robert Belleman told The Associated Press on Monday.

A city utility worker had installed a "limiter" device to restrict the use of electricity at Schur's home on Jan. 13, Belleman said. The device limits power reaching a home and blows out like a fuse if consumption rises past a set level. Power is not restored until the device is reset.
The limiter was tripped sometime between the time of installation and the discovery of Schur's body, Belleman said. He didn't know if anyone had made personal contact with Schur to explain how the device works.

Schur's body was discovered by neighbour George Pauwels.

"His furnace was not running, the insides of his windows were full of ice the morning we found him," Pauwels told the newspaper.

Belleman said city workers keep the limiter on houses for 10 days, then shut off power entirely if the homeowner hasn't paid utility bills or arranged to do so.
He said Bay City Electric Light & Power's policies will be reviewed, but he didn't believe the city did anything wrong.

"I've said this before and some of my colleagues have said this: Neighbours need to keep an eye on neighbours," Belleman said. "When they think there's something wrong, they should contact the appropriate agency or city department."

Schur had no children and his wife had died several years ago.

Bay City is on Saginaw Bay, just north of the city of Saginaw in central Michigan.

Freedom of Speech

I’m not a Republican or a Democrat.
Far as I can tell each is worse than the other and any distinctions you want to make between these cozy bed-fellows would have to raise hair-splitting to the level of a martial art worthy of its own film genre.
To me, the whole two-party thing is like a little game of 3-card Monty.
Strictly for suckers.

I’m not for the Democrats.
And I’m not for the Republicans.
I’m for America.
Not the America of history.
The America of The Dream.
It’s a dream only to be found in the rantings of irascibly uncompromising old patriots and in the diaries of young, dead poets.
And, of course, in the lies of politicians.

“Liberty and Justice for All.”
That’s the Dream.
Got a nice ring to it.
Thing is, you can’t get to either one of those things without going right through the middle of downtown Truth.

I want to know the truth.
Whatever it is.
However good or bad or embarrassing or distasteful or unthinkable it might be.
And I want to tell the truth.
However good or bad or embarrassing or distasteful or unthinkable it might be.
Because "the truth will set you free" --- and ONLY the truth will set you free.
But first, chances are it will make you mad.

There’s a saying, "Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it."
Two films I watch every now and again, just to remind myself of that: Triumph of the Will, and Night and Fog.
If you haven’t seen them, I recommend a viewing.

Hitler and the Nazis (no, that’s not another new opera-metal fusion band) are an important lesson for us. Adolf’s Germany is a perfect example of what can happen when people get swept up in emotion and fail to exercise a little critical thinking.

That brings me to President Obama.
As I've said before, if President Obama does good, I'll be happy as a clam to say so. But he doesn't get a free pass from me just because he's NOT George Bush, or because he's half-black, or because millions of starry-eyed sycophants apparently prefer “believing” to thinking.
I find some of his ideas as frightening and as dangerous as anything the recently-departed, would-be King George spat up.

But Obama's ideas don't scare me as much as the millions of otherwise well-meaning folks who demand unquestioning belief in their new saviour. When I recently I expressed some of my reservations about the new President and cited some easily verifiable facts from Obama's own campaign website and from the congressional record, I was immediately set upon by Obamaniacs who either don't bother to check the facts, or don't even CARE what the facts are.

That’s mob mentality.
The goose-step mentality.
It terrifies me.
Whether at a lynching, or a soccer game or a rock concert or an inauguration, it terrifies me.

And the knee-jerk intolerance of the neo-cons has now apparently been transferred to the Obamaniacs right along with the mantle of office. Judging from the personal attacks they leveled at me, they seem perfectly ready to burn me at the stake or commit me to an institution for daring even to raise a question – demonstrating the very intolerance that they so recently condemned the Bushvolk for displaying.


Cautious optimism MIGHT be in order, pending Mr. Obama’s actual performance, but some folks are dancing in the street like Jesus has just landed on the White House lawn and put up a "mission accomplished" sign.
A little pre-mature, I’d say. I think celebration of such mindless emotional fervor is dangerous, and rubs right up against stupid.

It might be good to reflect that Hitler, as far as we know, never personally murdered ANYone. It was all done by "loyal" followers who decided to go with "hope" and "faith" instead of critical reasoning.

My research and experience teach me this:
Be careful what you believe in.
And WHO you believe in.
And WHY.

Me, I'll never be a "good German."
Wouldn't bend over and play that part for Dubya and I'm not going to do it for Obama, either.
As long as I have a brain, the gentleman is going to have to EARN my respect like anybody else.
Maybe he will.
Hell, I HOPE he will.

But if he does, it will be with actions, not just words.


sj




(art by Norman Rockwell)

The Tao of Spartacus Jones

There are only two things in life that are really important.
One is love.
I forget the other one.

sj

No Reason in the World

The barn cats and some of the ponies, including mine, often do this very thing.
There's something about it that touches me, emotionally, more than you'd think it would.

I don't mind.




sj

My Mama Done Told Me....

Yesterday was Martin Luther King Day.
Today Barack Obama will become President of the United States.
Obama’s been trying hard to make you connect those two dots.
Instead of coming to town riding on a pony, he's putting the spurs to the memory of Dr. King. He’s trying to convince you that his election victory is the ultimate consummation of Dr. King’s dream.

Hogwash.

Dr. King dreamed of a time when each person would be judged only by “the content of his character” and not by the color of his skin. King didn’t just want a Black man to be President; he wanted a GOOD man to be president, and not be denied the job just because he was Black. I don’t believe King would have endorsed a militaristic corporate pimp dedicated to business as usual, just be cause he happened to be Black.
Or half Black.

King was a stand-up guy who spoke out in no uncertain terms against the war in Vietnam and the depredations of the US government. He was anti-war, pro-justice, and risked his life to say so. Eventually, it cost him his life.
It’s hard for me to imagine King spending $45 million on a party for himself. More likely he’d spread that bread around to folks who hadn’t seen three squares in a while – and we have plenty of people in that situation.

Obama wants to increase the military, escalate the war in Afghanistan. As a Senator, remember, he objected to the war against Iraq not on moral or legal grounds, but because he thought it was the “wrong” war. He nevertheless voted to fund it.
He voted for that bail-out for the rich boys, too.
Now, he’s surrounded himself with a group of “the usual suspects” certain to ensure the continuation of “business as usual.” He spews the same brain-dead pablum about the hyped-up “war on terror” as his dry-drunk predecessor; he pledges loyalty to Israel no matter what kind of ironically nazi-like atrocities they pull on the Palestinians, and he’s probably going to let Bush et al saunter away from a list of felonies long enough to make the average criminal doing 25 to life look like a Cub Scout.

You’ve heard of “guilt by association?”
Well this is the flip side of that same old propaganda trick: “nobility by association.”

Anybody fool enough or knave enough to mention these two men in the same breath, deserves a good whipping.

The above photos of Hitler and Obama?
That's a stupid comparison, too.


sj

Out-running Winter

If I could climb up on my pony's back
no saddle
no reins
just trust
Maybe we could out-run winter.


sj