Quick Substitute for a Lost Poem

Rub-a-Dub-Dub, A True Story

As I lay sleeping upon my bed,
From the bathroom came a noise
That filled me with dread.

I sprang from my couch,
Stubbed my toe on the door.
Sustaining myself with a painful “ouch”
I peered fearfully in at the bathroom floor.

But it was not hence came
The source of the sound.
T’was my two black cats
In the tub that I found.

And running from end to end
Of the tub in my house
Between the two cats
Was a terrified mouse!

First I caught the cats, one by one,
And rushed them both to another room.
Then off for the have-a-heart trap
Stored for when such emergencies loom.

I placed it gently in the tub,
And the dear little mouse
Ran right in, after which I carried it
Out of the house.

It’s safe as a wild animal can be outside.
My cats can only look from the porch.
Tonight I’ll sleep when I lay down my head.
Another dear animal is still alive and not dead.

ARW
2/28/09

Note: I can’t find the original of this poem which I wrote, but this one will do for the time being, I hope.

Also, I am not a poet, so I decided to try all the meters I could think of.

A quick Substitute for

Life and Death

If I Believed in God . . .

He would be saying, WHAT is going on down there?! I created Heaven on Earth for those people. But they think they know better what to do with it, so they have made it into Hell on Earth!

If they had done what they were supposed to do with Earth, all they had to do was learn to cope with the intermediate step, Purgatory, which was the first step to graduation. Instead, they had such fun taking things into their own hands that they decided they didn’t need Me anymore. So here we are!

I had a perfectly good system for taking souls up into Heaven, choosing from both ends of the spectrum, some that were so perfect or so imperfect at the very beginning of life that I had need for them then and/or felt that they had already suffered enough. And, as for the other end of life, when the old people had nothing left to do and felt that life had become a burden to them, I gratefully called them back to Me.

But the people on Earth, carried away by hubris, decided to end the flow from birth to death as I had created it. All babies look so cute to them that they decided to upgrade the flow of new ones, no matter that I occasionally make mistakes in creating them, (no one’s perfect) and no matter whose babies they are—the people who believe that way feel that they know everything about everything and therefore have the right to make the decisions for those people whose babies they are regardless of their views. Ah, but there’s the rub! For once the babies are born, the people who think they know better lose any interest in them, letting them get through life as best they can, resenting the fact that they might be asked to contribute in any way to the expenses to those ex-babies who may suffer their whole way through life.

As for the old people, many of whom are suffering either mentally or physically, the do-gooders like to keep them breathing just as long as possible, no matter the cost (so long as the do-gooders don’t have to contribute) and any misery that might be inflicted on their families. Of course, there are some families who are also do-gooders and would keep their own family members going on and on—and some old people themselves going on and on. This was not My original intention. People were intended to live and die at different times so that there would not be a huge back-up. But here they are, and I am left with no choice but to make them die from war, starvation, terrible injuries, and saddest of all, suicide. (And, with regard to suicide, how sad it is that so many of the men and women who went to war to protect their families and countries from evil-doers are now committing suicide at an alarming rate—unable to cope with what they have seen and done! They are the ones for whom I have reserved a special place of peace and rest, and where they have earned the right to forget.)As I have said, anyone can make a mistake. Please forgive Me, Earth, for what I did wrong. I’ll try to do better next time.

ARW
2/24/09

The Economic Summit

Listening to the President and the assembled dignitaries today, took me back to our greatest problem—overpopulation—and the only solution I can see to it. There is no other answer than to reduce our numbers, whether by will or by force. President Obama started things off today by talking about health care, which took me off, unexpectedly, to another direction.

We, like all creatures on this earth, past, present, or future, arrived here through the forces of Nature, and we will leave by the same means at a time unknown. What all creatures have in common is that the life spans differ according to what kind of creatures they are, and each creature has a particular life span on earth. Within that span, some of the young die early as a result of vulnerability to other creatures and forces. The middle group is fairly stable with its regard to its relationship to the forces of nature and the span of its existence. And the old, once again, become vulnerable to the forces of nature and their ability to outlive their time here.

Man, through his wonderful ability to invent new ways to keep the halt and the lame of each group alive, is now able to keep humans who would otherwise have perished still alive and breathing. In some cases, people who were badly wounded by injury or disease have recovered to a level where they have continued to contribute to mankind. But they are outumbered by those who exist only with continued care and fading contribution as normal human beings.

And the old, with relatively few exceptions, begin to sink into the ravages of old age, particularly with regard to mental capacity for everyday thinking. I have been very fortunate to have been nurtured by the computer to be able to write articles which I hope contribute to and share with the thinking of others of normal intellectual capacity. Next week, however, I will be 86 years old, and I can feel my everyday mind slipping away. I tend to sit for long periods of time thinking of nothing, I have a hard time thinking of ordinary words when I am writing, and I have recently started saying words inside out, to name a few of the problems currently bothering me.

The old used to die of old-age diseases, poverty, and neglect. Those of us who can afford excellent health-care can live on into the future without continuing to contribute to mankind as a whole, our only contribution being to ourselves, at great cost to the rest of mankind. We simply cannot continue to encourage more population at the beginning of life and then continue to support it at the useless end of life. Many of us who have reached this stage of life deserve to choose when and how they wish to end it.

ARW
2/23/09

My Contacts

My Apologies

When my health started to go down last year, I kind of forgot which groups you were in and stopped separating emails to friends according to your wishes, and have been mostly sending everything to Everyone. And then I made things worse for you by passing on incoming emails from other people. I had hundreds to go through when I got back to the computer, and I ended up unwittingly passing the heap to the rest of you.

Now I have decided to go back to a category method, if you will each help by letting me know what you want. They are:

Blog only – for those who want to read what I write on my blog only,
http://pawsdedeux.blogspot.com

LittleBill Says - for those who want to read what I write, but don’t
have access to my blog (same thing)

Everyone – mostly important information that I get from other sources
about things of possible interest to all, such as education, politics, and
world affairs

Serious Stuff – mainly politics, religion, and social concerns passed on by
me from other emailers and sources

Fun Stuff – mainly cute animal pictures, unusual landscapes and architecture, music, some jokes, and other things that children would like,
passed on by me from others

My email address has been changed to annwarb@gmail.com.

There may be some of you who have too much to cope with and would like to (gasp!) be dropped from my master list. If so, please let me know so that I can erase them. I’ll be happy to do so, BUT I’LL REMEMBER! Love to all. Anne, LittleBill

Note: The sooner I hear from you, the sooner I can try to clean things up for you from here.


ARW
2/9/09

Our New President

Our New President

I just watched President Obama at a Town Hall Meeting in Elkhart, Indiana.
God, I love that man!!

2/9/09
ARW

Christianity and Overpopulation

Christianity and Overpopulation

Well, I’m still on one of my favorite jags, but it’s very important and hard to get rid of.

Christians, especially evangelicals, are absolutely obsessed with the subject of producing babies without interruption. And they are determined to get laws which follow their beliefs embedded in the highest laws in what is supposed to be the leading country of free thought, laws which will govern all of us.

People at any age, especially young women, love to oogle at adorable newborn babies, and thus the drive to make sure that all babies make it from the womb to the world.
This includes all babies, no matter how deformed or unwanted, whether they have any connection to the family involved. This period of oogling does not last long, a few minutes if they are strangers, a few days if they are casual friends, and several months if they are close friends or family.

This newborn baby stage, sweet as it might be (and all newborns the world over are adorable), ends in early childhood, to be followed by years of anguish, deprivation, and hopelessness for by far the greatest number of those babies in the world as we know it,
but by that time, most people, including many Christians, don’t care anymore for the babies they didn’t really know.

Even newborn animal babies are considered adorable when they are born. Unfortunately, human beings like to eat them before they have reached their prime, while they are still babies. And they are such fun to hunt to prove by a man (and some women) that they really have balls.

Heck, we even send men who were once babies out to kill other men they don’t even know who were once babies!

And the main reason that so much of all this killing is going on is that there are way too many people babies being born. We’re helping the animals keep their numbers down, some to zero, unfortunately. And we’re taking most of their habitat and food, and undoubtedly causing most of the over-heating of the earth, which will eventually eliminate all of us. But the Christians believe they are pleasing God by making sure so many human babies are born. And, undoubtedly, ranking high in the hearts and minds of many of those who hold such beliefs, is the hope that that will please God greatly and get them into Heaven.

2/9/09
The Socialist Atheist

The Stimulus Package

Further Thinking About the Stimulus

There’s one further thing that makes the good old days of Bush so missed by the Republicans, especially the rich CEO’s. Many of them saved money by paying their employees less than they deserved or needed.

Then, when things really started going downhill, the wisest thing to do was to unload the people at the bottom, those who really could not afford to lose their jobs. This, at least for a while, has kept the Uppers still up.

That’s good ol’ American nohow, you know, the America we all boast about having so much generosity and brotherly love for mankind. We’re the ones who have sent mostly poverty-stricken citizens to fight our wars because they could not find other work otherwise. (This is beginning to come back to haunt us. Just wait until they come home, with only one skill—killing, and no place else to look. And increased access to education is a major cornerstone to their recovery.)

It may turn out that the Very Rich, and even the Rich will lose a lot if we don’t give Pres. Obama a chance. But not percentage-wise as those lower down. Not to worry. Those at or near the top have nesteggs, and really big nesteggs are really tough to crack.

So let’s all give a cheer for good ol’ unfettered free enterprise!

2/8/09
The Socialist Atheist

Stimulus Package

Taxes and Stimulus Spending

The really big jobs, like education, health, and infrastructure, make this country work, and the Republican favorite mantra is that the American family knows how to spend its own money and doesn’t need to have the government take their money and decide for them what they will do with it.


How selfish! This was originally supposed to be a Democracy, in which we all contributed, through taxes, for the greater good. We cannot, individually, pay for the three main needs above. I’m now 86, but I still should and do pay taxes. When I was a child, people other than my family helped pay for my education. When I had breast cancer, people I didn’t know helped pay for my operation and treatment. I can no longer drive, but people I don’t know paid for my streets, roads, and highways, along which my family and my helpers drive me to appointments.

That’s what taxes are for—for all of us to help all of us. And, right now, many of us are heading for the bottom of the heap. I’m lucky enough not to be among them. Increased taxes would help save most of those people, people you don’t even know, as well as improving all of the above for each of us. I am sick to death of hearing the news media direct their remarks to what the stimulus package would do for ME!

Don’t they teach you any of this stuff in church?


2/7/09
The Socialist Atheist

The Earth As It Used to Be

The Earth As It Used to Be and May Not Be Again

Once Upon a time, ? created the Earth, and it was lovely. Of course geology changed it over time, as did life forms. Many of those life forms killed and/or ate each other, but killing and eating did not appear with malice until Man appeared.

There are currently at least four main types of Man. Those who believe in God and are Christians, those who believe in other gods, the ?’s, of which I am one, and the those who have never thought about it, or don’t care.

Desmond Morris, in his book On Aggression, wrote about the effect of crowding on rats. When they are put into a cage in unsupportable numbers, they go insane after a fashion and begin killing each other for survival. This, I am sure, happens to other animals as well, but only Man kills for fun. Sometimes he stuffs what he kills, or hangs it on his wall, or puts it on his floor as a rug. And Men have undoubtedly killed each other from the beginning.

Now, however, Man has begun to feel the effects of being crowded in a cage. He has destroyed many other species on the Earth, he has also decimated much of the sustaining vegetation of the Earth, as well as many of the minerals beneath its surface.

So now Religion is beginning to take hold as our last means of survival. The Christians, full of righteousness, are trying to convert the people who believe in other gods, as well as the ?’s (whom they despise in a very condescending way). This is not working out too well. The ?’s appear to be increasing—or at least appearing. And those who believe in other gods can give back as good as they got.

So all Hell is breaking out, which, unfortunately, is heartbreaking to the ?’s, because, to them, ? created the Earth, and they can’t believe whatever created the Earth can end up this way, because they have worshipped whatever it was and have done their very best to preserve it. The Christians and those who believe in other gods evidently believe that their gods believe in Hell, because they are killing everybody who does not believe as they do in the name of Jesus (God’s son). And those who believe in other gods are also probably doing the same in the name of those gods.

The final outcome evidently will undoubtedly bring the most real grief to the ?’s for the end of the Earth as we know it, for they have worshipped it more than the others, and for ?, who/which created it.

ARW
2/6/09

(Created in my mind as I slept last night, where I worship and grieve for ? in peace.)

Socialism Two

Socialism Two: Release by Robbery

Having been born into an upper class family, the first part of my life was lived fairly accordingly, though I was not one for much socializing. Then, after a most unfortunate marriage and divorce, life’s circumstances for me and my children were reduced to the station of upper middle class. But, through the revelation of my half-awake-half-dreaming night last night, it came over me that my life is exactly what I want it to be.

I went to a play with a friend one night many years ago, having decided because we were late that I wouldn’t need any jewelry ( most inherited and very expensive) because we would be sitting in the dark. When I got home, I found the ktichen window broken, my pets terrorized, and all of my jewelry gone.

Gradually I realized that you don’t wear good clothes for a social occasion without wearing good jewelry to match. And, by the same token, you don’t wear good jewelry with informal everyday clothes. And so, over time, my lifestyle changed from one of a social life to one of casual clothes and no jewelry, and a full-time interest in rescuing and giving love to my many cats and dogs. By the same token, I am driven to contribute to charities for the earth as a whole and the creatures that live upon it, both human and animal. I am totally content.

What I am trying to say is that you don’t have to own or yearn to live a life concentrated on amassing great wealth for show. It is very sad that that has become the most important value in American life. It won’t necessarily make you happy, and there are millions of people who lead terrible lives of poverty, so spread it around.

ARW
2/4/09

Our Financial Mess

A Socialist Suggestion for a Solution

Before erasing this as a crazy idea, try reading it. Then you can erase it.

It should be fairly obvious to this over-populated world that things are running out of control. Much of the blame for this can be placed on religious addicts who believe that humans can go on forever reproducing themselves on a finite planet. If, on the other hand, you think that the problem can be solved by usurping other planets from their occupants, that’s a long way off. Even more important is that such a usurpation is sooo Human and immoral!

You true believers can now erase what I have to say, and I’ll talk to the rest. As for the rest of you, this plan might help a helluva lot of you without making anyone penniless.

To begin with, the economic experts must figure out how the wealth of the country can be divided up to make each of us comfortable. There must be a way to arrive at actual equations for this. Before this has been arrived at, the American citizens must be reeducated as to the new values. America is not a democracy, with freedom and the right to live a comfortable life. It is, instead, a Christocapitalocracy in which greed and religion join hands in excluding those who don’t fit their requirements.

The right to achieve enormous wealth at the expense of those beneath you, even to the point of extreme poverty, which exists in this country as well as in the rest of the world, is immoral. No amount of going to church and praying to God can change that. And the charity of some cannot make up for the stinginess of so many others. Those who are poor are not necessarily lazy or stupid, just as the rich often are lazy, stupid, and avaricious. Much of the difference in lives depends on who your parents were, what your education was, what jobs were available to you, etc., etc. Even presidents with wealthy families and a world of connections, reach the pinnacle whithout the intelligence to be where they got. (This time, by God, we hit the jackpot of luck.)

What I’m trying to say is that no one deserves to live in luxury, and no one who is able to work and does so deserves to live in poverty. Therefore, these are my suggestions:

1. A level of wealth beyond which a person needs to live a pleasant and valuable life should be determined by+ economic wealth and needs by an inclusive and highly qualified panel.

2. The level below which a person cannot live a sustainable life for which he receives recognition for his contribution by society must likewise be determined.

3. The panel must select one or more levels in between these two extremes to be determined on the basis of difficulty, physical danger, relocation, physical or mental ability, etc.

4. The excess wealth in the nation should be divided among any of those on the lower levels. Some on those lower levels may live comfortably as they are, thus allowing more funds to go to those most in need. And funds may change hands or levels as needs change.

5. This level is reserved for those capable of working at something, but unwilling to do so. This level should not include people who have been psychologically destroyed by circumstances, as are so many veterans.

After some semblance of equality has been reached, it will be incumbent upon all of the citizens on the first four levels to pay taxes to support the needs of the country as a whole, thus also rewarding them with pride in their citizenship.

These are not meant to be punitive suggestions. They are offered as a possible partial solution to the hole in which we find ourselves.

ARW
2/1/09