Baby Groundhogs

What a cutie!  I think that's grass in her mouth.

I'm lucky enough to be living right next to a hole where a mother groundhog lives with her three babies.  They are all very cute.  A wild-eyed rabbit approached a baby groundhog curiously, a little too close for the baby groundhog evidently.  The baby groundhog sprinted at the rabbit: scaring her off.  That's a pretty tough baby groundhog.  I was in a band called Baby Groundhog; we sucked. 
I think that the scrawny groundhog around here impregnated the zaftig mother, she had the babies, then she was done with him.  I saw her chase him away.  She might have been saying, "Don't eat this grass!  This is for my baby groundhogs!"
The babies are afraid of everything: with good reason.  I think I saw the mother chase one of her babies.  Perhaps she went out without her mother's permission.  The mother knows which sights and sounds to fear from experience that the baby groundhogs do not have yet.  So many a sound will cause a baby groundhog to run toward the comfort of the hole where she's being raised.
Speaking of holes, I recall the first time I realized where the mother groundhog lived.  I surprised her by emerging from an area where not very many people walk around.  She sprinted, like her life depended on it, toward the building in which I live.  Where is she going, I was thinking.  She dove into a hole; then her head popped out of it.  She was so cute that I couldn't help smiling and waving at her, but I don't think she liked that.  I think she wanted to be invisible to me, because the giants frighten her.
Groundhogs are beautiful animals, and, as far as I can tell, and I 'm no Jacques Cousteau, they seem to be very quiet too.  Not like the birds they share grazing duty with.  Even though noise is noise, I prefer loud birds to loud humans.
By the way, I've been listening to Paul Davis, and he is awesome.  What a syrupy-smooth voice.  Now I'm listening to Gloria Estefan's greatest hits.  I'm being assaulted by the Conga.  This music would be better if she was dancing to it right in front of me.  Wootay!
What else can I say about groundhogs?  They're a credit to the community.  They are rising property values.  They should get into politics; they've got my vote.  The least-qualified groundhog would still do a better job than G.W. Bush did.  But what if he turned out to be a Hitler Groundhog?  That's a scary thought.  I guess it's best to take it slow.  Animals don't yet have the right to vote, and maybe they don't need it.
I have achieved many involuntary erections as a result of petting dogs.  They were completely involuntary; I want to stress that emphatically.  I have never touched the sex organs of an animal intentionally.  I have accidentally during innocent petting.  I also have never rubbed my sex organs on an animal.  Innocent petting can cause an erection, I believe, just cause it feels good to pet something soft and furry.  Perhaps the sexual subconscious recognizes that the body is in close proximity to another sexual being in the sexual world.
But the question that must be asked is Would petting a groundhog give me a boner?

Birds Are Driving Me Crazy! (Part Deux)

Little bird make big noise

This is one hell of a noisy world.  In my home, I'm either hearing people making noise, or animals, or both at the same time.  Sometimes I'm hearing several people and animals making noise simultaneously.  I never thought this would be true, but birds are worse than people when it comes to making noise that bothers me.  They really don't seem to mind being annoying.  I'll admit that some of them sing sweetly.  However, even when they do, they tend to be very repetitive with their singing: like a human singer who sings the same line over and over again.
Chirping is much worse than singing.  Typically, I'm hearing one or more birds making the same exact sound repeatedly.  It seems like some of them have no plans to stop.  They're usually pretty loud too.  I suspect that these are juvenile birds who are saying, "feed me," and it's clear that their hunger never dies.  Unfortunately, birds don't seem to sleep very much.  At a certain time of night, they finally quiet down.  However, they've woken me up around 5:00 a.m. several times.
I believe that people have committed suicide because birds have driven them to do it.  Many, many people have committed suicide for many different reasons.  Every 17 minutes of every hour of every day, someone commits suicide in the United States.  I suppose I should get out more and go to places where there are less birds, or the birds are quieter.  
We humans believe that this is our world, and everyone else is a squirrel trying to get a nut.  I'm not so sure.  Ever imagine how many sparrows are currently living in this world, let alone the total amount of birds?  They can fly, and we can't.  They are thriving.  They are driving me insane.  They're not letting me forget about them.  They're reminding me that they're there nearly every one of my waking moments.
I'm not going to hurt any birds.  Sometimes I can hear a bird chirping on my bedroom windowsill.  I usually march right over there and say, "chirp!  chirp!  naughty birdie!"  The sparrow looks at me, jumps off the windowsill, and usually flutters down to the ground.  Sometimes she has nest-building materials in her beak.  This is preferable, because she isn't as loud when she's got stuff in her beak.
I love all animals.  I just love the quiet ones more.  

Danny Rolling

This is not Danny Rolling; this is Bumpkin.

Like many people, I am fascinated with serial killers.  I recently read Helter Skelter and a book about the BTK strangler.  I plan to read at least two more books about serial killers after I'm done with what I'm reading now: a book about suicide.
The serial killer who I find to be most interesting is Danny Rolling.  In 1990, over the course of a few days, five of his victims were found.  Four of these victims were women.  As far as I know, most serial killers who kill women target prostitutes.  They're easier to kill, because you can find yourself alone with one shortly after meeting her.  Also, sadly, they are less likely to be missed.  This is why serial killers, like Gary Ridgway (The Green River Killer), are able to kill so many.  It's obvious that, throughout history, many prostitutes have been murdered.  This is part of what makes Rolling unique.  He killed five college students in Gainesville, Florida.  Students attending college in the area, their parents, and people living in and around Gainesville were terrified.  This wasn't supposed to be happening there, and it wasn't supposed to be happening to people like that.  Since Rolling was killing college students, the public undoubtedly put more pressure on the police to catch him.  Danny Rolling wasn't in it for the long haul.  
Rolling raped his female victims, then killed and mutilated them with a large hunting knife.  He posed their bodies to shock those who found them.  He decapitated one of his victims and put her head on a shelf.  According to what I read about the murders, he let his victims know what he was going to do to them before he did it.  As far as the male college student he killed, that seemed to be a wrong place at the wrong time sort of situation.  He was well over 6 feet tall, weighed over 200 pounds, and it was clear that, from all the defensive wounds he had sustained, he had fought hard for his life.
Rolling, in addition to being a killer, also expressed himself artistically.  On a TV show I watched about him, I briefly heard part of a song he wrote and performed; it sounded pretty good.  These were the lyrics I heard: "Mystery rider, what's your name?  You're a killer, a drifter gone insane."  If memory serves, he also wrote some poetry: "I'm everyone's worst nightmare come to life: a maniac with a knife."  Additionally, I've seen some of his drawings on the Internet: pretty good (creepy too).
Also on TV, I saw an interview with Rolling.  He was talking about when he got caught.  While smiling, he said, "great googly moogly."  Great googly moogly!  He was talking about getting caught for committing 5 incredibly brutal murders.  When I saw and heard that, I had one thought: sociopath.  Predictably, a woman fell in love with him after he was arrested.  That was another incredible moment: when he suddenly began to sing to her in court.
I don't like serial killers; I'm not a fan of theirs.  I just think they're interesting.  They're just another product of this sick society of ours.  Rolling, and his brother and mother, were beaten many times by his sick, abusive father.  Obviously, this is what can happen when people who have no business being parents become parents anyway.  They create monsters.              

I Hate Taking Care of My Teeth

One of my valued neighbors: Flopsy

I wish I didn't care if they all rotted right out of my big bald head.  But I do care, that's the problem.  I start by brushing my teeth after eating breakfast.  Then I gargle with mouthwash.  Then I gargle with a fluoride rinse.  After eating again, I brush my teeth again.  Then I floss.  Then I chew a couple of xylitol mints, which are supposedly good for oral health.  After eating for the third, and final, time of the day, I brush again.  Then I chew a couple more of the xylitol mints.  Approximately 12 hours after gargling with mouthwash for the first time that day, I do it again, followed by 2 more xylitol mints.
The worst part is flossing.  I hate flossing so much.  It's such a pain in the ass and a pain in the gums.  Since I have OCD, it makes it flossing even more of a pain in the ass.  That little annoying voice in my head is always ready to pipe up.  Did you floss between those teeth or not?  I think I did, but I'm not 100% sure, so I better make sure.
A dentist once recommended that I avoid sugar completely.  I have a lot of discipline when it comes to eating (I'm a vegan and I don't eat as much as I'd like to because I want to be slim.), but I'm not even close to being ready to avoid sugar altogether.  I don't know if I'll ever be able to do that.  Failing that, the dentist recommended flossing after eating or drinking anything that had sugar in it, which, I'm pretty sure, includes naturally sweet foods like bananas and strawberries, even though they contain no added sugar.  That means that I won't consume anything with sugar in it after I've flossed, and I usually floss in the morning.  I'd allow myself to eat or drink something with sugar in it if I were to floss again, but that's the point.  I don't want to floss again!  Once a day is my limit.  
I waste so much time taking care of my teeth.  And, of course, it's boring as hell.   To be or not to be, that is the question.  To take care of your teeth or not take care of your teeth, that's another question.  I might be better off just letting them rot.

Gasland

We need to protect the environment: for us and the animals.

Gasland is the name of a documentary I saw recently.  I had an idea of what it was about, but watching it was an eye-opening experience.  It's about hydrofracking, which is called fracking for short.  It's unbelievable that this process is allowed to happen.  Apparently, during George W. Bush's administration, natural gas companies were exempted from having to pay attention to things like the clean water act or the clean air act.  This meant they were allowed to frack.
Fracking is a method that involves pumping a lot of water, that has been contaminated with hundreds of chemicals, some of them known carcinogens, into the ground for the purpose of getting to the natural gas. Unfortunately, it seems like they frequently don't clean up after themselves very well.  Fracking has led to a lot of pollution here in the states.  People who live near fracking sites are very unlucky.  Many of them have to deal with their water supply being completely contaminated with dangerous chemicals and natural gas.  Some of these people are able to hold a flame up to their faucets, turn on the tap, and literally light the water on fire.  It seems like plenty of these people can't use their tap water for anything: definitely not drinking.  They have to go out and buy all their water; some have huge tanks. 
There were also reports of workers dumping one of the results of fracking, toxic waste water, into streams.  It was very sad to see a few streams that were obviously heavily polluted.  Someone said that all the fish died in at least one of these streams.  Additionally, animals died because they drank the polluted water.
Many people who live near these fracking sites have become very sick.  One of the guys thinks that it gave him cancer.  That's what we can expect when companies are allowed to pump carcinogens into the ground that can get into the water supply.  It's a shame that, for some people, money is more important than life.  They don't care what they do to other people, animals, and the environment.  None of that matters to them as much as cash does.     

I Love Animals

Bumpkin with her mama, Sheila (standing)

I really do.  I like animals more than people.  An animal has never insulted me.  An animal has never taken my job away from me.  An animal has never treated me in a condescending way.  I have had problems with depression, but it always cheers me up to look out my window and see a groundhog.  It's hard to feel like shit when I'm looking at a chubby little groundhog nibbling on grass.  Today I looked out my window, and right in front of me, a robin, who was perched on a telephone wire, took a dump.  "Thanks," I said.  "Right before I eat breakfast."
I like them all.  Mice are cute.  So are birds.  I love to look out my window and see rabbits.  It's very sad that someone would look at a rabbit and want to hurt or kill her.  I can only assume that such a person is evil.  The other day, I watched a rabbit approach a particularly bushy clump of grass.  Then she pawed at it with her front legs.  She moved both of them in a circular motion.  I have no idea why she did that, but it was very cute.
I like watching robins too.  They stand with their head up high, then they duck down, walk briskly for several steps and stop.  The head will pop back up again, and it will all be repeated. 
The love I feel for all animals is so strong.  I don't understand why so many people don't feel the same way.

Birds Are Driving Me Crazy!

Please keep it down!

I have dealt with birds living in the space behind my kitchen fan before.  They probably discovered it and thought, wow, what a great place to live!  What a great place to raise some babies!  It all began with a bird who tweeted in the morning.  Sometimes, he woke me up.  I knew that the time adjustment for daylight savings time was approaching, and I hoped that it would improve the situation.  If he began tweeting at the usual time (for him) after the clocks had been moved forward an hour, he'd now start an hour later (as far as the clocks and I were concerned).  That's pretty much how it turned out.
However, today, things have exploded!  It seems like the loudest bird family in the world moved in to the space behind my kitchen fan.  They have been chirping and tweeting loudly all day long.  They've been making all sorts of weird noises. I kept telling myself, they have just as much right to be here as you do (even though they're not paying rent and I am).  I wanted to yell at them to shut up, but I resisted the urge.  I didn't want to scare the bird shit out of them.  I love animals.  How can a bird, who's chirping constantly, realize that he's being annoying?  I resisted the urge for so long.  I finally said, "that's it."  I marched over the the kitchen fan and said, toward it, "quiet please!"  I showed some restraint.  I didn't yell.  I just said it clearly and sternly.  I don't think it had much of an effect.  I tried it again.  I've said it a total of three times so far.
Currently, finally, it is silent behind my kitchen fan.  But how long will it last?  For how long must I endure this chirping Armageddon?    

I Love Metal

One of my favorite Black Sabbath albums: Sabbath Bloody Sabbath

I'm referring to the music: not steel or aluminum.  I own many CDs, but against all common sense, I'm in the midst of shopping for even more, because there is a big sale going on at a website that sells metal CDs.  I really, and I mean really, shouldn't buy any more, but sometimes I can't help myself.
Ever since I was a kid, I've listened to hard-rock bands like AC/DC, Led Zeppelin, and Van Halen.  I was one of the last to switch from cassettes to CDs.  Similarly, I still listen to CDs, and I don't have an MP3 player.  I also don't own a cell phone, so I'm always at least a step behind.  Although, I don't own a cell phone because I hate them.  When it came time to buy my first CD, I chose a greatest hits album by Black Sabbath, because I had always liked Paranoid and Iron Man.  I wasn't very familiar with them beyond those two songs.  I was blown away by the CD I bought.  I now have 16 Sabbath albums.  I also had remembered liking a couple of Iron Maiden songs when I was younger.  So I bought their album Number of the Beast.  Again, I was blown away.  Now I have 12 of their albums.  There are many metal bands, and quite a few very different-sounding styles among them.  But, in my opinion, Sabbath and Maiden are the Beatles and the Stones of metal; they're the best.
It's a shame that people stereotype metal and their fans.  It's as wrong to stereotype a metal fan as it is to stereotype someone because of their race, creed, ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation.  Some people assume that all metal bands and their fans are satanists.  That's ridiculous.  In my collection, there are satanic bands and christian bands.  It doesn't matter to me; all I care about is the music.  And I believe in neither God nor Satan.  Although, if I found out that a band went so far as to sacrifice humans or animals, then of course I would not buy their albums.
Metal is a worldwide phenomenon.  Metal fans exist in nearly every nation: even in countries where they might cut your hands off if they caught you playing metal.
Why do I like it so much?  I didn't really choose it; it chose me.  I love the energy and the power of it.  Even when I buy a metal album and it turns out that I don't like it very much, at least I can usually exercise to it.  I also find a lot of truth in metal.  Much of it is dark: just like life.  So many people happily bring people into this world, gleefully ignoring the fact that EVERYONE is going to die.  There is a whole sub-genre of metal called death metal, so, obviously, this sort of music isn't sweeping death under the carpet, which is something that so many people try to do.
Since I'm a vegan, this sometimes clashes with my tastes in metal.  For instance, I like Judas Priest.  They're a great band.  I just wish they hadn't fetishized leather as much as they have.  There's nothing cool or sexy about leather; it's just dead innocent animal skin.  At least the guys in Judas Priest admit that they are a metal band.  I've read that Ozzy Osbourne was irritated at the suggestion that he was a metal artist, claiming that he was "rock and roll."  If that's true, then he should be ashamed of himself.  Metal fans have made him a very rich man.  I won't buy anymore of his albums, because he has bitten the head off a dove and killed a bunch of cats, among other cruel things he's done to animals.  Of course, he was probably out of his mind on drugs when he did these things, but that's no excuse, and, even worse, he seems to think these things he did are funny; he doesn't seem to be apologetic about it at all.  In my opinion, Ozzy is the luckiest man in the history of metal. Right from the beginning, he's been surrounded by great musicians.  He, of course, established his name with Black Sabbath, which I think is a situation where the music clearly overshadowed his vocals.
I was watching TV one day, and they were talking about the video for Faith No More's "Epic," which ends with a fish out of water flopping around.  Then they mentioned that PETA had complained about that.  Scott Ian, of Anthrax, appeared on the show.  His response to all of that, to the best of my memory, was f--- the fish and f--- PETA.  My immediate thought was f--- Anthrax.  At that point, I already had an Anthrax greatest hits album, so not buying any more of their albums was a very easy thing for me to do.
I love metal, but I don't care how great you are, if you f--- with animals, I won't buy your records.   

Forks Over Knives

I love groundhogs: especially juveniles.

That's the title of the documentary I watched last night.  I'm not claiming it's the best movie I've ever seen, nor the most compelling, but the basic message is what's most important.  Eating meat and dairy products is bad for your health.  It can lead to the development of diseases like heart disease and cancer.  Eating a whole foods, plant-based (vegan) diet is good for your health.  The movie is similar to Super Size Me (except in reverse), in that several people switch from a typical American diet to this whole foods, plant-based one.  All of them lost weight, felt better, and had more energy.  One of them was a man who was overweight and taking several different prescribed medications.  He was able to stop taking all of the medications and he felt better than when he was on them.  He also underwent a very impressive bodily transformation.  On meat and dairy, he had a typical pudgy, out-of-shape physique.  After switching to the vegan diet, it looked like he was in better shape than a lot of men who are half his age.  It certainly seemed like he was much happier as a result of ditching the meat, dairy and medications for fresh vegetables.
I had suspected this myself for a while.  Be good to animals (by not eating them), and as a result, you'll have good health and you'll be more likely to have a slim body.  Don't care about animals and contribute to their suffering (by eating them), and you're more likely to be overweight and have poor health.  Pigs, chickens, and cows are closely controlled by people.  They don't have much of a chance to strike back at their tormentors (humans).  However, they often end up doing it posthumously by negatively affecting the health of those who eat their flesh.
This isn't about my opinions though.  As this movie shows, several studies support the film's message about the importance of the right diet.  Also, several doctors have found this to be true.  One of these doctors, a firm believer in the evils of a diet which includes animal products, estimated that health care costs, which dwarf the defense budget in America, could be reduced by as much as 70-80% if everyone switched to the whole foods, plant-based diet.  That's not all though.  Switching to this diet is better for the environment.  The meat industry contributes to global warming more than the transportation industry does.  And I've mentioned it before, but it was included in this movie, and it's worth stating again.  Do you consider yourself a compassionate person?  Do you care about people, especially children, who are starving to death?  If so, become a vegan: or at least a vegetarian.  If enough people became vegetarians, then it would reduce the demand for meat, so less livestock would be intentionally brought into the world (for human consumption).  Currently, massive amounts of (vegan) food is grown for livestock.  If we reduce the amount of pigs, cows, and chickens brought into the world (for the purpose of being eaten), then more of the corn, soy, etc. that had been allocated for these animals would now be available for human consumption and could be sent to hungry people around the world.  In short, if enough people became vegetarians or vegans, we could end world hunger.     

Suicide

A Crude Noose

It's an epidemic, and I suppose it always has been.  It's always one of the leading causes of death.  Yet it's something that gets swept neatly under the carpet.  Many suicides occur everyday, but the media usually doesn't report them unless a celebrity was involved.  They are routinely covered up by friends and family members who wish to hide the true cause of death.
If someone killed him or herself because he or she was miserable, and he or she was basically a decent person, then I wouldn't even think of insulting the memory of this person in any way, shape, or form.  It's a horrible choice to have to make.  In a perfect world, no one would even have to consider it.  Unfortunately, many people are miserable on a daily, or near daily, basis.  I believe firmly that everyone has the right to take his or her own life.  There are exceptions, however.  If you have kids, especially young ones, I believe it is wrong to kill yourself.  If someone has at least one pet, then I likewise think it's wrong for such a person to commit suicide.  If you have no kids and no pets, then it's your life, and it's up to you.  It's a hell of an ugly thing though.  The way I see it, it's the mind killing the body.  The mind wants to die, but in many cases, the body will struggle to survive during a suicide attempt.  It will thrash around at the end of a noose or frantically try to avoid drowning for instance.
Over one million people commit suicide every year.
I used to think that George Carlin was the best stand-up comedian of all time.  I no longer think that.  He was always cynical, but he eventually became super cynical.  In the last HBO special of his I saw, he made fun of people who have depression, and he even made fun of people who have committed suicide.  The idiots in the audience just kept laughing: not me.  That was where I stopped laughing.  I really don't see the humor in laughing at people who are suffering, especially those who have resorted to such extreme, unpleasant, and final means to end their pain.

Breaking News: The World Has Been Blown Away!

Young Groundhog in the Sun

You heard it here first.  It seems like it just keeps getting windier and windier.  Sometimes, the wind blows so strongly, it's ridiculous.  This seems to be happening more frequently.  What a cold, godforsaken world this is.  I believe that the world, as we know it, will be blown away by raging, out-of-control winds.  I'm no meteorologist, but it seems to me like hurricanes and tornadoes fall into the category of wind.  It's wind that blows cars and trucks around.  It's wind that destroys buildings and scatters the resulting debris with the greatest of ease.  I predict it will get worse.  It will eventually get so bad that it will blow skyscrapers over, and once that happens, it will be the beginning of the end.
Prepare now.  Prepare for the end of the world.  You have been summarily warned.  I'm not sure what summarily means, but it seems to fit here.  The end of the world, as they know it, has already occurred for the squirrels who used to live in front of my apartment building.  Recently, all their nests, that had been supported by tree branches, came crashing to the ground.  I sincerely hope that none of them were hurt when that happened.  Sadly, they have moved.  I used to feed pure in-the-shell nuts to them.  They used to chase and corner me for my nuts.  That hasn't happened in weeks.  I still have a lonely bag of nuts sitting on my kitchen counter.  That sack of nuts is a constant reminder of how we will all be brought to our collective knees.
You have been warned.