– Simple empathy should tell one this. Anyone who has ever loved a dog would know this truth.
– It’s what Buddha was talking about when he mentioned compassion for all living beings.
– We take ourselves way too seriously and judge everything that is not human as lesser.
– But they feel, they love and they hurt just like we do.
– dennis
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– Read about it here and here.
– Research thanks to Sharon R.
Last night, I watched “The Hunter“. A film that takes place in Tasmania about 2001.
Tonight it was “The Tracker“, which takes place in New Zealand just after the Boer War.
Both excellent and recommended.
…to form a sentence is to collapse many superposed wave functions to a single thought universe. Multiplying the lost universes word by word, we can say that each sentence extingushes 10^n universes, where n is the number of words in the sentence. Each thought condenses trillions of potential thoughts. Thus we get verbal overshadowing, where the language we use structures the reality we inhabit. Maybe this is a blessing. Maybe this is why we need to keep making sentences. Book = “2312”, Author = Kim Stanley Robinson
One of the constants in this long and wandering trip of mine has been Skype. It has, thankfully, allowed me to stay in touch with my partner, Colette.
We’ve done Skype video sessions nearly every evening; with her in New Zealand and me in whatever place I’m currently visiting – sharing the small stories of what’s happened to us on the day. Indeed, on the days when a lack of Internet access have prevented these sessions, I’ve felt like an essential part of my day has been missing.
Between International texting, E-Mails, digital photos, small video clips and our Skype sessions, we’ve probably stayed in better communications on this trip than we’ve typically done when I’m in New Zealand and we’re living together.
So, here’s to Skype and the Internet. And, here’s even more especially to Colette, my sweet and patient partner.
I encountered a very cool technology today. A cellular hot-spot.
This is a cell phone that can access the Internet via the cellular system and which then rebroadcasts the Internet access to other devices around itself via WiFi.
In the case I’ve found, it is an Android HTC phone, tethered to the T-Mobile network here in the U.S. The app itself is called “Hot-Spot” and it came with the HTC Android phone.
I’m told that cell providers like AT&T and T-Mobile here in the U.S. are not enthusiastic about the “Hot-Spot” concept and they are working out how to either block folks from sharing their signal or to charge them for the extra devices accessing the Internet via the hotspot.
There are also free-lance apps around (not from the cell phone maker) that can do this but I’ve read that these can be buggy. One such is “MyWi”.
If you know more about all of this or have corrections to what I’ve posted here, let me know.
Dennis
I had a Prostatectomy in August of 2009. One of the consequences of that operation is a tendency towards impotence since the nerves that control erections are seriously disturbed by the process of removing the Prostate Gland.
If you are marginally impotent, as I was, following the surgery, Erectile Disfunction drugs like Cialis are indicated. And they are, in fact a great help.
But the prices of Cialis is astronomical.
I’ve tried ordering the cheaper generic stuff from India but, in truth, I have no confidence in it nor to I think it works.
So, that left me with ordering it in New Zealand or in the U.S. New Zealand doesn’t subsidize Cialis as part of their medical system so they are simply charging U.S. prices with a shipment markup added.
In the USA, for 45 – 20mg pills, the cost is $1100+ USD. Ouch! I paid that last year when I was here and this time, I thought I’d have to do the same.
But, I had a trip up to Canada scheduled to visit a good friend of mine and, in the course of things, I found myself with most of a day to kill here while my friend was at work one day.
I decided to see if I could do better price-wise on Cialis here.
The bottom line is, “yes”, I could do better. I paid only 60% of the US price here and got the ‘real deal’ Cialis from the genuine U.S. pharmaceutical firm that makes it.
If you need this stuff and live anywhere near the Canadian border, this is worth knowing about.
Get a U.S. prescription (original copy) and bring it to a Canadian walk-in clinic. Pay the $60 CDN (your price may vary) to see a doctor and ask him to rewrite the prescription as a Canadian prescription. Then carry that to a Canadian pharmacy and you’ve saved yourself 40% off the U.S. prices.
Why are U.S. prices so high? Such an obvious question and none of our elected representatives (elected to supposedly represent our interests) can tell you. Maybe it is all those Big Pharma donations that helped get them elected?
Dennis
– I wrote this piece to explain to Americans how differently the New Zealand medical system works from the one Americans are familiar with.
– Dennis
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http://www.skyvalleychronicle.com/BREAKING-NEWS/DOCTOR-DOCTOR-MISTER-MD-BR-I-Can-you-tell-me-what-s-ailin-me-I-1070455
Written by Bill McKibben for Rolling Stone Magazine
– I watched a show tonight that took place in Spain. But it could have been Syria, Chile or Cambodia. or any number of other places. They were digging up a mass grave that dated from Franco’s time and the people buried there had probably been killed in 1936.
A person was asked if they thought there was value in digging these folks up and they offered the opinion that they didn’t think so. It was the past and long ago. We should just forget it and get on with today and life.
So wrong
I couldn’t have disagreed more. Every strongman, every dictator, every despot should know that their crimes against others will not be forgotten. They should know that misusing their power against others who cannot defend themselves will not quietly go away. There will be no place to hide.
To me, it is abhorrent that it took so long between the years of the killing fields and when Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge cronies were tried. Abhorrent that Pinochet was able to hide from international judgement for so many years.
When the dust settles in Syria, those at the top of the now Syrian government should be held until all the atrocities are enumerated and then they should be judged and punished according to their complicity.
Qaddafi got a rough judgement and so should everyone who abuses their power and abuses other people like this. And these judgements should come sooner than later.
Everybody in one of those graves had a name, had a mother, loved someone and was loved by someone and had dreams and a future. Everyone of them had a right to express their differences with the government of the day without it costing them their lives.
It still goes on today and it should not. We yammer on about our compassion for human rights and justice but so much of it is just talk. The kind of talk and hang wringing that gets done when we’re really obsessing over the geopolitical consequences or the effect it may have on trade.
And, while we’re talking, we can hear on the radio that they are marching men right now into the stadium at Srebrenica – and few of us that day were much in doubt as to what was next. But the politicians just keep on talking. Talk, talk, talk while people were dying.
Spain, Rwanda, the Katyn Forest – you name it – the lists go on and on.
It is wrong. And those who do it, or those stand silently by while it is done, should be punished every time, without fail, to send a message for all who are yet to consider making such a decision.
Chris
My younger son, Chris, has been here in New Zealand now for six weeks and he’s decided that he loves the place and is going to arrange permanent residency here, if he can.
This is one the best things that could ever have happened for me.
I love New Zealand and I’m very happy to be here as a permanent resident. But my family all remained in the U.S. on the other side of the planet. And I’ve missed them and I’ve felt my separation from them deeply.
Originally, in 2006, my second wife, Sharon, and I were going to immigrate here together. But for a series of complex reasons, that didn’t work out. And so I came alone in 2009 and she stayed and we divorced.
At 64 now, I’ve made a new life for myself here in this wonderful and isolated bit of the world. But, it’s been a series of harrowing years between the beginning of the journey back in 2006 and now.
Prostate Cancer (which I beat), a divorce, the loss of our joint land (25 acres) and business (a nursery), the February 2011 earthquake here; which took my beautiful and fully paid for executive apartment in Christchurch, a heart attack (which I also survived). It’s been an emotional and intense few years.
But the Beloved gives as well as takes and I’ve found a new relationship here with a wonderful and intelligent Kiwi woman named Colette. She’s shared her home and life with me since the earthquake and that arrangement has worked out brilliantly.
She’s calm and (thank you, Jesus) hasn’t an ounce of drama queen in her. Straight and true as the day is long.
Colette
She feels and she cares but with deep reason and thoughtfullness. It would not be an exaggeration to say that she very probably saved me from depression and possible self destruction during my darkest days.
And now comes my son. Full of energy and enthusiasm, he’s landed here with both feet on the ground. He’s found a wonderful partner (with whom he’s living now) and he’s gotten excellent job prospects and all in such short order that he’s truly amazed me. I think he’s going to make a success of life here in this beautiful place. Certainly all the signs are favoring him and that desire.
So, these are the cards I find spread before me now as I prepare to go and revisit the U.S. for 10 weeks.
I have a wonderful partner and friend here in Colette who shares her house and life with me and who has given me the ungrudging freedom to go on this journey to resurrect and renew my family ties and my many U.S. friendships.
And I’m leaving my son here now building a new life for himself. And in the process, he is so deeply enriching my life by my knowing that one of my beloved blood kin is now sharing this New Zealand life and experience.
Beauty
This Blog is primarily about the mess this world is in. That such things deeply concern me any reader here will know.
But you should also know, friends, that I am a deeply grateful man to be alive now, in this time in history and to be living the life I have.
– Dennis
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