Surgery day

I told the nurse that the patient whose room she had sent me to wasn’t Peggy. She said that it was Peggy, but I still had to look at the old, pale, and puffy woman in the bed for awhile to be sure (I had told Peggy just before her surgery that she looked sexy in her purple hospital gown--which she did). My advice to you is this: if you’re supposed to be in a beauty contest one night, don’t have surgery earlier that day.

While I sat by Peggy’s bed, I pictured us when we were in our twenties, holding hands while we ran for joy across the prairie in Saskatchewan (I remember that day because we were nearly struck by lightning). Now, we hold hands while we hobble into doctors’ offices. Well, we don’t exactly hobble, but we’re getting there.

The universe never promised us an easy life.

The universe never promised us a happy life.

The universe never promised us a peaceful end to life.

The universe doesn’t even know that we exist.

We live for no purpose, and then we die, and the fearsomeness of this thought is why people believe in god.

I’m scheduled for my first of four joint replacements, which means that Peggy and I will be one-armed together. The surgeon and I all but argued—over Peggy’s bed, no less—about which hospital to use for my surgery. I said I wanted to go to Sacred Heart because I could have a private room at no extra charge, and he said he could use his influence to get me a private room at McKenzie Willamette at no extra charge (I have good reason for wanting a private room). “Besides,” he said, “I can give you far better care at McKenzie Willamette.” “Then it sounds like a no-brainer to me,” I said.

Peggy is resting now. I held her hair out of her face while she threw up. How many times have I done that over the last four decades? I’ll tell you. Many.

I just took two stiff drinks. I hurt so much that it’s hard to care anymore what I take or how much I take as long as it stops the pain. I’m not supposed to take narcotics until after my surgery because if I do, they won’t work when, presumably, I need them most. Well, hell, they don’t work that well now. Nothing works that well now, but if I pile pill atop pill and use ice, I can at least sleep a little bit before I have to get up and do it all again.

You don’t think I complain too much, or that I complain without a good reason, do you? Pain is such a private phenomenon that I often wonder where I am on the scale of having a justifiable response. This might surprise you, but I think I handle pain better than most people, but it’s hard to know for sure.

I read from Camus’ The Stranger while I sat by Peggy’s bedside (the morphine made her doze, so I had a little time on my hands).

“He was wearing a soft felt hat with a round crown and a wide brim, a suit with trousers that corkscrewed down around his ankles, and a black tie with a knot that was too small for the big white collar of his shirt. His lips were trembling below a nose dotted with blackheads. Strange, floppy, thick-rimmed ears stuck out through his fine white hair, and I was struck by their blood-red color against the pallor of his face.”

When I was young, such passages were about someone with whom I had nothing in common. Now, they’re about how I will be in fifteen years. Sometimes, I wonder if I will even live another fifteen years. Come to think of it, that’s about the length of a dog’s life—if the dog lives to be fairly old.

Nurses can tell that I adore Peggy, and that touches them. I asked one of Peggy’s nurses today if she will be my nurse when I have surgery, and she gave me her home phone number so I can be sure she’s working that day. She said that if she’s not working that day, she’ll refer me to someone who is. Now, I have my surgeon, my anesthesiologist, and one of my nurses all picked out. My advice to you is this: if someone is good at what they do, stick with that person, and let them know that you respect them. You get better service that way. As you know, I was kidding about the beauty contest, but I’m being serious now. While I’m giving you advice, I’ll also suggest that you praise good workers to their supervisors. One reason for this is that they’ll feel beholden to you, and the other is that you owe it to them.

Do ever feel when you’re writing that, after every paragraph, you could go in a dozen different directions. How do you choose? I choose really fast because otherwise I get too bogged down.

Those two drinks—taken on an empty stomach—were too much. I thought they might be, but I found it hard to care. Now that I feel as if I too could barf, I do care, but it’s too late. Most wisdom comes after the fact, but since the rules about a lot of things are forever changing, after-the-fact wisdom isn’t necessarily better than no wisdom at all.

Upon cursing those who so richly deserve it

I rarely curse anyone, but have done so twice in one week. The first time was when I saw a man picking a bouquet of flowers in a public park. The second time was twenty minutes ago when I cursed Heidi, the medical office manager who lied to me last month about my insurance company and the federal government requiring her to collect mine and Peggy’s Social Security numbers (I refused to give them, so she had me pay upfront for an appointment I had waited two months for).

I can think of a few downsides to cursing people, but the one I find most influential is that, if they have the power to thwart me, they might be more likely to use it. This didn’t apply to the thief or to Heidi. As I told Heidi, I would be delighted if she didn’t refund my money because I would love to haul her lying ass into court. If there were a hell, it would almost be worth going there just to see some people I know getting what they so richly deserve. Of course, if Tertullian was right, one of the things that makes heaven heavenly is that "the saved" get to gaze into the fiery pit at souls writhing in agony.

The painting is Paul Gauguin's “Eve—Don't Listen to the Liar"

Omniscient docs have all my money, so I hope they'll be sweet as honey and make me frisky like a bunny

Story I

Dr A, an internist, confidently announced after a single office visit that my LEG PAIN was caused by Chronic Regional Pain Disorder, a degenerative disease that becomes so painful that sufferers have a pronounced tendency to go insane and/or kill themselves.

Dr B, a pain specialist, was absolutely convinced after a single office visit that the same problem was caused by a completely different horrible disease, syringomyelia.

Dr C, a neurosurgeon assured me that Drs A and B were both wrong, but since she had no idea what the problem was either, she gave me a referral to Dr D. Since the pain is showing some signs of getting better on its own, I haven't been to Dr D.

Story II

After ordering thousands of dollars worth of sophisticated tests, Dr E, an orthopedist, insisted that my BILATERAL SHOULDER PAIN was due to arthritis.

Dr F, another orthopedist, was just as insistent that it was due to torn rotator cuffs.

Dr G, my third orthopedist, unequivocally disagreed with them both, and confidently diagnosed another problem.

Dr H, my fourth orthopedist, completely agreed with Drs E and F but completely disagreed with Dr G.

Dr I, a neurosurgeon, suspected cervical cancer and cut through the front of my throat to get a piece of bone from the back of my neck. When no cancer was found, she said she was certain that a series of fluoroscopically guided steroid shots to my spinal cord—administered by her practice partner—would eliminate the pain. When they didn’t, I went back to Dr G who performed two shoulder surgeries, each of which required a yearlong recovery. I’m now in worse pain than ever.


I’ll share just one more story. Peggy had a cyst removed from her leg in the 1970s. The doctor put an airtight dressing over the incision and told us sternly to leave it in place until our follow-up visit the next week. We lived in Mississippi at the time, and it was August, so this sounded like a really bad idea to us, but we ignored our qualms because, as we told ourselves, he was a doctor and we were school teachers, so what did we know.

As we feared, the incision became infected. My point is simply that you shouldn’t put a great deal of faith in a doctor simply because he or she has a medical degree and sounds confident (if people treated you like God Almighty and threw money at you like it was confetti, you would sound confident too). As for “modern medicine,” well, the term has a nice ring to it, but you’ll recall that the modern medicine of one era is the primitive blundering of the next. You’ll also recall that “modern medicine” labored for millennia in ignorance of bacteria and viruses, and that the original appeal of homeopathy lay in the fact that it was SO innocuously worthless that it didn’t regularly kill people as did the modern medicine of the early 1800s (buy me entire carton of a “powerful homeopathic remedy,” and I’ll drink it in front of you). This meant that instead of having to survive both the disease and your doctor’s ministrations, you only had to survive the disease.

I’m far from suggesting that you should feel discouraged though. After all, no drug or procedure is a complete failure if you live to tell about it, and if you don’t live to tell about it, well, your doctor at least succeeded in ridding you of your problem, so you’re actually a winner either way.

A potpourri of generalizations about the irreligious

I went into atheism kicking and screaming, but many atheists found it easy to give up their religion because it never made a lick of sense to them, and because they didn’t think that living forever sounded so great anyway.

Even today, if someone could prove to me that god exists—and that he is good—that person would find me most appreciative, but then I would feel the same way if he convinced me that I had won a billion dollars. Neither prospect appears very likely.

I’m actually glad that no one ever tries to convert me, because it would bore me to rehash the same old tired arguments for god's existence. Yet, for someone to say that I’m going to burn in hell forever if I don’t believe in his particular version of god, and then to spend no time at all trying to show me the error of my ways does seem strange. Maybe such people recognize the paucity of their arguments, or maybe they just don’t like me well enough on earth to put up with me in heaven.

Believers sometimes ask what I’ll say to god after I’m dead if it turns out that I was wrong. Well, if I were standing at the edge of the proverbial fiery pit, I might brown-nose for all I was worth, but if I were honest, I would have to say, “I’m very surprised that you exist, but since you do exist, allow me to point out that you’re sure one sorry-ass excuse for a deity. The main difference between you and Satan is that Satan at least knows he’s evil.”

When I was a child in Mississippi, I often heard white people say that black demonstrators had no reason to criticize the way they were treated. When believers tell me that I have no reason to criticize religion, I remember those white people.

An atheist won’t think you’re more evolved because you claim to be spiritual rather than religious. He’ll just be grateful that you lack organizations through which to oppress him. Likewise, he won’t take it as a compliment if you tell him that he’s “too spiritual to be a real atheist.” Really, he won't.

Likewise, an atheist won’t think you’re “sensitive” because you believe in magic and mysticism; he’ll just think you’re so jaded that you can’t appreciate a real wonder unless you populate it with creatures of fantasy.

I sometimes wonder if most religious people aren’t just pretending to love god because they’re afraid of him. I would even suspect that most religious people secretly hate god because they have books that portray him in one way, yet the world around them—over which he presumably has complete control—is the other way.

Atheists think the same way about god that they think about Bigfoot. They don't categorically deny his existence; they just take the complete lack of evidence as a bad sign.

Most atheists spend zero amount of time fretting over your beliefs about god. What they fret about is that so many of you are determined to force your beliefs about god on society, only to scream that you’re being persecuted if anyone objects.

Most atheists do think that the world would be better off if no one believed in god because religion is a major—if not the major—cause of hatred, alienation, and war. Believers don’t seem to notice the harm caused by religion, or if they do notice it, they blame it on other people’s version of religion rather than the concept of religion.

Few atheists think religious people are more moral. In fact, most of them believe religion to be a hindrance to morality because religious people place their holy book or guru above fairness and compassion.

I think people are religious for psychological reasons. The world is often unjust and capricious, and the universe as a whole places no value upon our lives. Religion claims that the opposite is true, and this makes it attractive.

Scandinavia is known for its low crime rate, its high standard of living, its reluctance to wage war, its environmentally responsible lifestyle, and its irreligion. America is known for its high crime rate, its worsening standard of living, its warmongering, its pollution, and its religiosity. This same pattern is repeated in the parts of America that are the least religious compared to the parts that are the most religious, and it is repeated everywhere else in the world. Does this maybe suggest something to you?

Upon entertaining atheists

Saturday’s atheist group was the first that I unreservedly enjoyed, partly because we have finally gone from having one existing member to every four new members, to having four existing members to every one new member; and partly because I have stopped trying to be the perfect host. When you host up to three events a month, you just have to give up on having your dust bunnies symmetrically arranged. Here’s my report on last night’s meeting, and on the people who attended.

Steering Committee: We met an hour before the scheduled meeting, and discussed ways to handle our growing membership. We also decided to sponsor a support group for people who have been emotionally harmed by religion. This group was my idea, and I had done a lot of planning for it, so I assumed I would be in charge, but Mary volunteered, so I turned it over to her. This was hard for me, but since I’m forever ragging on everyone to take more responsibility, I felt that it was necessary. If we don’t attract enough support group members from our total membership of 73, we will reach out to the community at large.

The snacks. They were excellent except for some stale nuts. I tasted them in advance, and knew they were stale, but didn’t have the guts to say so to the man who brought them. I won’t do that again.

The drinks: Wine, juice, pop, and gin. I initially thought the gin was wine because it came in a corked bottle that was shaped like a wine bottle, so I poured myself a large glass, and ended up drinking it all. Since I’m well past the age when it seems cool to act loaded, I faced somewhat of a challenge.

The topics. Intuition—what is it; does it exist; how can it be explained; and are women more intuitive than men? Morality—if you’ve always been told that religion is the sole source of morality, what happens when you give up your religion? Dialogue with believers—how should atheists address issues of faith, prayer, purpose, and so forth, and does the abrasive approach of many of the so-called New Atheists alienate more religious people than it awakens?

The members:

Marian. She’s autistic and, at twenty, is our youngest member, yet soon after she joined, she had the guts to challenge a loud, large, and arrogant sixty-year-old man when he said something that didn’t make sense to her. I wish I had had such courage when I was her age.

Bella. At 88, she’s our oldest member and a treasure chest of experience if not of wisdom. If someone hasn’t spoken much, Bella will start trying to draw him or her out. We’re going to devote a major part of our next meeting to hearing Bella talk about anything she wants to talk about.

Steve. He has a gift for taking unpopular positions and calmly using his encyclopedic knowledge to turn them into teaching opportunities. I think his IQ is probably off the chart, but I would say the same about a few others. I rather doubt that I’m the smartest person in the group, but I have some good excuses for it.

Lee and Robin. They were Jehovah’s Witnesses until a few years ago, and this puts them in an excellent position to teach the rest of us about cultish behavior. I also enjoy the fact that Lee plays the role of the intellectual male and Robin the emotional female, yet they give every appearance of using these differences to complement their marriage—I know they use them to complement our group.

Bob and Mary. They both strike me as intensely emotional, although they wear a patina of calm. They’ve been together for a long time, and seem to have a happy marriage. If I had to use one word to describe them, it would be steady. Bob hosts our movie night, and Mary is going to host our support group. If the group ever needs a bouncer, I’ll appoint Bob because he’s the kind of guy who don’t take no shit from nobody.

Ruth. She gives the word ebullient a whole new meaning because she’s so childlike in her excitement despite her nearly six decades. She hosts our group’s game night, but her political activism often competes with her participation in other group activities.

Larry. He nearly always comes to meetings, but he seldom speaks unless someone asks him something. When he does speak, he expresses himself well and makes good points.

Victoria. She reminds me of a bird that seems ever poised to fly away, yet when she’s present, she brings good energy and interesting perspectives. Last October, she loaned me five extra chairs for the group’s use, and she hasn’t asked to have them back, so we’re still using them.

Richard. Although tonight was his first meeting, he acted like an old timer whose opinions were valued. I wish I could feel that wanted when I’m among strangers.

Kurt. He’s a man of depth, but he seldom speaks unless someone asks him something.

Edwin. He’s relatively new; he said little; and he left early, so I have nothing to say about him.

Rachel (a child). Brewsky (a cat). Bonnie (a dog). Every meeting should contain these three because they emit a sweet, casual and homey ambiance.

Blank and Blank. They were no shows. I hate it when people stand the group up because I have limited space, and this means that they might knock someone else out of coming.

Four hours and twenty minutes passed between the arrival of the first person and the departure of the last, yet I was sorry that they didn’t stay longer. That was a first for me.

Better no title than an obscene title

I am going to share the following experience to make a point.

On February 8, I went for my appointment with a neurosurgeon whom I hadn’t seen before. The receptionist handed me a form that asked for, among other things, my SS#* and Peggy’s SS#. When I refused to give these due to concerns about identity theft, the receptionist said that she needed them in order to bill insurance. I knew that this wasn’t true, so I refused to give them a second time. She then said I would have to pay for the entire doctor’s visit before I left, and that she would then bill insurance and reimburse me when payment was received. This contradicted what she had just said, but I saw no point in arguing with someone who wasn’t in a position of power, so I agreed to make the payment, and sat back down.

When a half hour passed, and I still hadn’t been called by the nurse, I went back to the receptionist and asked to speak to the practice manager about the SS# requirement. As I was making this request, my name was called, so Peggy and I left the front desk and were shown into an examining room.

After several minutes, a woman who introduced herself as Heidi came in. Heidi was the kind of person who just naturally inspired trust, and this made her well qualified for the lies she was about to tell. She said that both my insurance administrator (HMA) and the federal government required that I provide mine and Peggy’s SS#s. I told Heidi that I had a number of doctors and none of them had these numbers. She said that her office’s contract with HMA stipulated that it obtain them for payment purposes.

Heidi also said that I could still see the doctor if I paid for the visit in full, and that she would bill HMA, and reimburse me when she received payment, although she doubted that HMA would make payment unless I provided our SS#s. When I said that I had already agreed to pay after I saw the doctor, Heidi said that the doctor wouldn’t see me unless I paid first, so Peggy went back to the front desk and did so. When the doctor came in, I took the matter up with her, and she said that patients who decline to provide all requested information always leave without paying.

When I got home, I checked with both the federal government and HMA to verify that neither of them required that I provide a SS#. The HMA representative said that the doctor’s office probably just wanted the information in order to track us more quickly if there was a billing dispute. In other words, the doctor wasn’t content with my photo, my birthdate, my phone number, my driver’s license number, a copy of my insurance card, and contact information for Peggy’s employer; they also wanted the very last piece of information that an identity thief would need.

Now for my point. The most common means by which identity thieves operate is through insiders in medical offices, yet every form I fill out when I see a new doctor asks for information that the doctor doesn’t need but which gives identity thieves every last piece of information that they do need. I never provide SS#s, and no other doctor has insisted upon them. The fact that I was the only complainer in that large waiting room suggests how foolishly compliant most people are. In my case, I live with pain; I had waited two months to see this doctor; and I had spent $650 on a test she had ordered, so this would have made me more vulnerable to her unreasonable requirement had I not hardened myself against such things.

Just over the past ten years, I have seen businesses of all sorts rush pell-mell into invading their customers’ privacy and stripping them of their legal rights. For example, more and more stores are requiring the customer to provide his or her name, address, and phone number in return for an I.D. card that allows him to buy products on sale. These cards allow the stores to track his every purchase so that they—and the companies they sell the information to—can better target their advertising.

Where I live, at least, you can no longer buy a car without first agreeing to binding arbitration if a problem develops, and the dealer even reserves the right to pick the arbitrator! When I protested this, I was told that it was a government requirement, and that I was the first customer who ever had a problem with it. I later verified that these were lies to get me to fall into line, yet dealers couldn’t get away with such outrages if most customers didn’t fall into line, and it is this very mentality that disturbs me far more than the requirements themselves. Everyday, we give up more pieces of our privacy and even our basic legal rights, and I see no end to it as long as most people don’t have the guts to say no to unreasonable demands.

I have filed complaints about Heidi’s lies with the SS Inspector General, the Oregon Dept of Justice, and the Better Business Bureau. I have also asked my credit card company to wipe the charge from my bill. When I think of something else to do, I’ll do that too.

*A Social Security number is an individualized nine-digit number that is used for various government related purposes. If someone has your name, your SS#, and your birthday, he can steal your identity.

March 30 update: After demanding that I pay the FULL COST of the visit upfront, Heidi turned around and billed insurance for twice that amount. I went ballistic, and today she refunded ALL of the money I paid in the apparent hope of getting me off her back. My insurance company will still pay through the nose, but that’s by their choice not mine.

Things I love—a sequel to “Things I hate”

I love Peggy. She is kind and wise, and the best thing that ever happened to me.

I love baking crackers, cornbreads, and biscuits. I also love making soups and pancakes.

I love to write. I also love to read but not nearly as much as I love to write.

I love my new cat, Brewsky—aka Fuckface when Peggy isn’t around (“Isn’t that just like a man?” she would say.)

I love it when Peggy massages my shoulders each day.

I love the fact that, although I am in pain, I can still see, hear, and get around.

I love it that pain has made me stronger.

I love it that modern medicine has kept me alive when I would otherwise be dead.

I love camping with Peggy in remote areas.

I love learning about rocks and native plants.

I love oatmeal and mayonnaise but never together.

I love it that age has enabled me to give up most of my idolization of women. I love it that Peggy stayed with me during all the years before this was true.

I love having Ellie for a neighbor.

I love to dig. If I had my health back, and if digging didn't make such a mess, I could do it everyday simply for the joy of it.

I love living in the city instead of in the country.

I love it that I bike more often than I drive.

I love Peggy’s room, especially her “rabbit shrine” and her glass crystals that catch the sunlight and throw hundreds of rainbows.

I love PBS (Public Broadcasting Service).

I love a lot of Western movies and TV shows from before 1960 and a few after 1960.

I love it that I’m mostly unconcerned about what people think of me.

I love being able to do almost anything to a house that needs doing.

I love how much Peggy enjoys her button collection. I also love how much she enjoys her music collection and her Christmas ornaments.

I love my blog buddies.

I love Busby Berkeley dance numbers.

I love the beach, the desert, the forest, and the mountains.

I love keeping my house clean, orderly, and in good repair.

I love dark chocolate.

I love the bliss of narcotics in the middle of the night when pain awakens me.

I love the taste and the warm glow of hard liquor.

I love Baroque music. I also love cowboy music, both old and new.

I love the sound of an electric guitar.

I love my dog, Bonnie Blue, and I love my memories of dogs that have died.

I love cuddling in front of an old movie with a bowl of popcorn on a cold night.

I love having gained in prudence, knowledge, and wisdom over the years.

I love spring, summer, and fall.

I love coffee, strong and black.

I love making my yard look nice.

I love going to the nursery with Peggy to buy plants for our garden. I also love it when we go to Costco and say we’re having a “date.”

Herding cats

Part 1

When I took over leadership of my local atheist group, about six of us met irregularly. The first thing I did was to organize a regular monthly meeting. I also worried a lot. I worried that the group would fail, and I worried that its failure would be my fault. I thought I would feel better if I organized a steering committee to share the responsibility. Along with the regular meeting and the steering committee, we now have a monthly movie night, a monthly game night, and a bi-monthly book group. You might think I would feel better, but you would be wrong. I was so overwrought after our meeting on Saturday that I had to take even more pills than usual to get to sleep, and then I was awakened by nightmares.

In one, I was driving a car in which all 72 of us were riding. I had no idea where we were or even where we were going, but I didn’t want to admit it, so I kept trying to get my bearings by looking at road signs. Because I was going a little fast, I missed a curve. We ended up in a large flat area and came to a stop facing the way we had come. Still not wanting to admit my ignorance, I said I was just turning around.

In another dream, we were all in a house overlooking a river. I decided that maybe we were overlooking it from a bit too close, so I went outside and looked under the house. Sure enough the river was running under part of it, and although the house was built on posts, they didn’t look too substantial, and I worried that the house might fall into the river. When I turned to go back in, I saw that a mountain lion was stalking me, and I knew I would never make it to the door. I yelled for help, and when someone opened the door, I told her to bring me a gun. “Which one?” she asked. “Any of them!” I yelled, and woke up.

Part 2

The youngest person in our group is a teenager, and the oldest is eighty-seven. We’re equally divided according to gender, and nearly everyone has at least one college degree. Of the religious backgrounds represented, I only know of the following: Mormon, Mennonite, Unity, Jehovah’s Witness, Orthodox Jew, Baptist, Church of Christ (me), Roman Catholic, and one person whose parents were atheists. I’ve no doubt that many others are also represented, but I have no idea what they are.

The steering committee met before the regular meeting on Saturday, and one of the items on the agenda concerned how to handle group business between committee meetings. I had been doing it with the thought that the committee could overturn anything they didn’t like, and I rather suspected they would want me to continue, which they did. Later, I thought that I would be just as happy if two or three people shared the responsibility with me, but as soon as I thought that, I realized that for me to do it alone saves a lot of time.

The thing I’ve hated most has been facilitating our regular meetings, both because I’m shy in groups and because atheists tend to buck authority. It’s even hard for me to facilitate the steering committee. Two-thirds through the one on Saturday, someone asked me if we were covering everything I wanted covered. I laughingly said: “Oh, I gave up on that ten minutes ago because directing you people is like herding cats.” That must have pleased them because they stayed on track for the rest of the meeting.

If I were screwing up, the steering committee wouldn’t be so agreeable, yet, as I told them, I don’t want anyone to think of me as a leader in the sense that they either have to get along with me or leave the group. Rather, I want them to think of me as a leader whose goal isn’t to dominate but to serve. They said that is how I come across.

Part 3

Madalyn Murry O’Hair actually did lead American Atheists by force of personality. She could dominate hundreds of people just by walking into a room. I heard her speak at LSU (Louisiana State University) one night. She trashed Christianity in the most vulgar terms before a largely Christian audience that sat in speechless horror. When she finished, she didn’t exit through the wings as speakers usually do, but down the center aisle. I thought, oh, my god, they’re going to beat her to death, but they made a path for her that was wide enough for five people, and the only sound I heard was that of her heels striking the floor. I was reminded of Moses parting the Red Sea.

The trouble with Madalyn was that she needlessly alienated a whole lot of people, many of them atheists. She saw herself as the epitome of what a self-respecting atheist was supposed to be, and if you had a less confrontative vision, she considered you a coward. Because of her harshness, one of her followers founded The Freedom from Religion Foundation, which is now much larger than American Atheists. Another problem with Madalyn was that when she died, her organization nearly folded. That’s just how it is with personality-dominated groups.

Madalyn liked my writing and, as a result, she asked me to call her Grandma. That was definitely one of the high points of my life because, say what you will about her, she was one smart, quick thinking, and courageous cookie. She lived for the cause of advancing atheism to such an extent that it would make the pope and Billy Graham together look like pikers.

Part 4

Ah, but I can hear some of you saying: “See there, atheism is just another form of religion,” to which I would say, “Define religion.” If you mean a faith-based worldview, atheism is not a religion. I would even suspect that, to most atheists, atheism isn’t even a means to end (as is most religions), but simply one result of a worldview that values evidence and rationality. In saying this, I don’t mean that religious people value ignorance and irrationality, but that they hold faith as a superior means of knowledge, at least in matters of religion. My challenge to them is: “But how do you know that faith is superior?” If they say, “Because I have faith that faith is superior,” they’re into an infinite regress.

Any claim to the superiority of faith over evidence and reason can’t be disproven by evidence and reason. This is why—in the short term anyway—atheists can only reach believers who are susceptible to rational argument. True believers literally don’t care about evidence and reason (although they might use it in an attempt to persuade the ignorant). For example, if it were possible to prove conclusively that the entire Bible was written by some prankster, it wouldn’t matter in the least to them. They would just say, “That was how God chose to bring us his word,” or, “God allowed Satan to create false evidence in order to test the faithful.” Afterwards, they would believe even more strongly than before. Faith isn’t just belief in the absence of evidence; faith is belief despite the evidence.

Upon shooting politicians

If I was outraged when Congresswoman Giffords was shot, surely it behooves me to ask myself how I would have felt had G. W. Bush been shot when he was president. What Americans are supposed to believe is that if they dislike one elected official, they should work to elect another. But what if you think the official you dislike is single-handedly taking your country down the toilet? The fact is that I would have liked it A LOT had Bush been killed. The only thing I would have liked better had been if his entire cabinet died with him because it wasn’t Bush the man whom I cared about but the policies of the Bush administration.

But what of those today whom—benighted though they appear to me—see Obama as being as evil as I saw Bush? I could say that nearly all of the harm Obama is said to be doing will almost certainly be overturned after the next election, whereas George Bush left generations in debt, started two unnecessary wars, and caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands. If I explained this to the Obama haters, would they be likely to agree that the politicians I want to see dead are worse than the politicians they want to see dead? But of course, when hell freezes over.

It’s almost a moot argument anyway because the odds of killing a president—much less a president and his cabinet—have gotten harder over the years (JFK was riding right out in the open through the streets of a city that largely despised him). Senators and Congressmen are another matter though. Any of us could kill one just by checking our local newspaper to see when she’s scheduled to appear at a nearby event, and showing up to shoot her. Imagine how scary this must make it for elected officials who support abortion, gun control, healthcare reform, or any other issue that makes the right lather.

But do right-leaning politicians not have just as much to fear from the left? Probably not. That’s an politically unpopular opinion, of course, but political popularity isn’t related to truth but to the desire to win elections. As nasty as the left can be, I don’t recall them putting crosshairs on opponents’ districts, threatening to exercise their “second amendment option” (for non-Americans, that’s the amendment that has to do with gun ownership), or talking about taking their opponents “out.” Neither do they have rabid radio talk show hosts egging them on 24 hours a day.

Be that as it may, if one side of the governmental aisle feels itself in danger of being assassinated, then it’s reasonable for the other side to get uneasy too, so the most outrageous rhetoric will no doubt be toned down, at least by the politicians themselves and at least until the next election, because if there’s one thing we can trust our elected officials to do, it’s to take care of themselves first, and that’s true of the right and the left. After all, it’s not their lifelong government subsidized healthcare they argue over; it’s ours.

For those who care, the Glock in the photo is similar the one used in Tucson but with a laser scope. I chose this photo because it also shows an extended clip similar to the one used by Loughner. Four extra clips are also pictured.

Things I hate

I hate litterbugs. I think they should be shot on sight, and I would include cigarette butt litterbugs. I can sympathize with an occasional murderer but there’s no excuse for littering.

I hate people who talk loudly and/or in public places on their cellphones. In fact, I hate cellphones. I just want to take them out of people’s hands and stomp on them.

I hate people who smoke in public, especially if they’re walking in front of me on the sidewalk. They’re killing themselves anyway, so why not euthanize them now—with a flamethrower?

I hate my country because we’re forever bombing the hell out of other countries and then pretending that we did it for their own good.

I hate it when people are so fat they waddle. It’s one thing to be a little overweight; it’s another to have a feedbag full of doughnuts hanging around your neck all day. I think we should send 300-pounders to Third World countries so that starving people will have something to eat.

I hate political correctness, which I define as legal or occupational coercion on the part of some people to force other people to conform to their definition of niceness.

I hate predictable—and often silly and redundant—phrases such as “at this point in time,” “he broke down in tears,” and “the merciless flood waters.”

I hate stores that don’t carry bulbs and batteries for the products they sell. I also hate stores that play loud music or try to sell me stuff over their PA.

I hate it that every fitted sheet now comes in a range of sizes—say 12” to 18”—because the only people whose beds look properly made up are people who have the largest size mattresses that the sheets will fit.

I hate it that every weakness has become a psychiatric disorder. No one is shy anymore; he has a social anxiety disorder. No one is a glutton; she has an eating disorder. No one is sexually impotent; he has an erectile dysfunction disorder. Clearly, the whole damn society is in immediate and desperate need of pharmaceuticals. I think we should follow the money if we want to understand such things.

I hate it when desperate people believe silly things in order to feel comforted, but instead of admitting to their desperation, they say they have “faith.”

I hate it that I can’t trust corporations, ever, about anything. For example, when Dawn Dishwashing Detergent made its bottles smaller, they wrote on the side that it was a “NEW AND IMPROVED SIZE,” so consumers would be fooled into thinking they were getting more for their money.

I hate legalese that is written in small print so people won’t know what they’re signing even if they’re able to read it.

I hate the word folks. When I grew up, folks was used by hillbillies to refer to their relatives. Then, George W. Bush (no surprise there) referred to Al Qaeda as folks, and now everyone uses it all the time.

I hate upspeak (the practice of unintentionally making declarative statements into questions by finishing them several notes higher than they started). A woman (and it IS always a woman) might have eleven hundred doctorates, but when she uses upspeak, I know she doesn’t have confidence in what she’s saying, so I don’t either.

I hate the word “survivor,” as in, “I’m a sexual abuse survivor,” because it’s invariably an excuse for being a perpetually angry twit.

I hate it when people let some “holy” book or person do their thinking for them. If the next pope declares that it’s god’s will that Catholics support stem cell research, then that’s what they’ll do. Or if a long lost chapter of Genesis is found in which “God” says that life came about as the result of evolution, then fundamentalist Christians will jump on that bandwagon. In the final analysis, “people of faith” value compassion, justice, reason, and evidence less than they value having someone tell them what to think.

I hate the word like when it’s used as a substitute for uh. “Like, me and him, like, we, like, got wasted, like, you know?”

I hate style changes in clothing. Speaking for men, at least, tie widths and shirt collars don’t change constantly because guys can’t make up their minds, but because people who sell clothes make more money that way.

I hate Texas because we’ve had three presidents from Texas during my lifetime (Johnson, Bush, and Bush), and they were all warmongers. What’s wrong with those people down there in the most Christian state in the Union?

I hate commercial television. What kind of a dimwit do you have to be to sit through one minute of intelligence insulting commercials for every two minutes of intelligence insulting programming? Even on those rare occasions when it’s a good program, doesn’t it have a desensitizing effect on your psyche to be suddenly and repeatedly yanked from scenes of rapes, murders, and autopsies only to be thrust into deodorant commercials?

I hate rich people because they either: (a) inherited their money from people who cheated others; or (b) cut out the middleman and cheated others themselves.

I hate college athletics because they’ve become more important than education. For every one person who knows how a university ranks scholastically, ten thousand know how its football team did.

I hate it when people join the military during one or another of our many wars without giving a lot of study and thought to whether they believe in the war. I’m truly sorry when they get killed, but I’m not going to pretend that they died “fighting for freedom,” because the truth is that they probably died for no better reason than that they were young and stupid.

I hate it that our planet is doomed because my species is too asinine to plan for the long-term. We’re like three year olds in that we have enough brains to get ourselves into deep shit, but we don’t have enough brains to see it coming or get ourselves out of it.

What to do with a catatonic cat

Peggy and I took Brewsky to the vet last week for the free check-up that we were promised when we adopted him. We had to wait a long time for the vet to finish his cigarette break, and when he finally did come in, we were practically in tears. He asked what the hell could be wrong since he hadn’t even done anything yet, and we said that he had recently euthanized our cat-hating old dog in the same room that he was about to examine our dog-hating young cat. He started laughing like a man who had positively lost his mind. Peggy and I were just a little completely outraged by this display of inappropriate jollity, so we sat with our arms folded and glared at him hatefully.

After what seemed like a half hour but was probably no more than twenty-seven minutes, we looked at one another, and we could each see in the other’s eyes that we too thought it was pretty funny—in a weird kind of way—so we started laughing with him, and in no time all three of us were laughing so hard that we were crying. It turned out to be a really great vet visit, partly because nobody had to be killed but mostly because it was free. I had much rather go home with a dead animal than to go home with a hundred dollar charge on my credit card.

When we told the vet that we were virtual virgins when it came to owning a cat, he took it upon himself to help us understand how cats think, but he used a lot of technical jargon about feline sexual fantasies, and we couldn’t follow it any too well, so he finally summed up everything he had said by telling us that all we really need to remember is that cats are sexual perverts, and that there’s no point in even trying to understand them. He suggested that we write this down for future reference, but neither of us had a pencil, so we just repeated it in our heads until we had memorized it.

He asked how things were going with our new cat, and we told him that we were having two problems. He said that he needed a smoke, so he would only have time for one of them, so while he trimmed his fingernails, we told him that Brewsky was keeping us up all night every night only to sleep all day—when we had to be up. The vet said that this served as a case in point for what he had said about how sexually obsessed cats are, but that we didn’t have to put up with Brewsky’s selfishness. He suggested that we embark upon what he called Feline Sleep Re-Programization (it goes by the acronym FELINESLEEPREROGRAMIZATION).

Basically what we’re supposed to do is to keep one or more battery operated squirt bottles in every room plus the garage, attic, crawlspace, front porch, back porch, front yard, backyard, vegetable garden, and flower beds. We said that we only needed nine bottles because Brewsky stays indoors, but the vet insisted on selling us 34 bottles plus 102 gallons of tap water just to be on the safe side. The brand name for these bottles is Deluge-A-Kitty, and they each have a gallon tank that’s good for two squirts. They also have a strobe light and an air horn (it’s not quite as loud as a train whistle) that come on automatically when you squeeze the trigger. What we’re supposed to do is to tiptoe all over the house and yard (the vet said that we might as well look everywhere since we own so many bottles) twice every hour, and when we catch Brewsky napping, let him have it. When we asked the vet if all that water isn’t a little tough on furniture, sheetrock, knickknacks, electronics, wall-hangings, carpeting, clothing, woodwork, books, elderly dogs, and so forth, he sold us a gasoline-powered blow dryer that can hit 650 degrees Fahrenheit on high.

We’ve only been using the bottles for three days, and Brewsky is already staying awake all day. That’s the good news. The bad news is that he’s staying awake all night too. He has also stopped eating and playing (he did drink a little water day before yesterday), and he will only shit in our shoes. Mostly, he just sits in the corner while staring at the floor and trembling. We’re starting to worry that he might have some hereditary psychological problem, because we can’t understand why else he would start acting screwy just when he’s showing progress toward staying awake during normal, healthy daylight hours. I’m not saying that we’ve given up hope yet because we’re more patient than most people, but if he doesn’t snap out of it in the next two days, we’re going to have him euthanized, and we’re going to ask the vet to do it in the same room he used for Baxter. Then, when we get another new cat, we’re going to have him examined in that room so we can see the vet laugh like that again. This was Peggy’s idea, and when I asked her why she was so enamored of laughing vets, she said it was because our laughing vet has a tight ass and nice dimples. Peggy might be old, but she’s not completely dead, I guess.

What the U.S. government is doing to destroy a legally operating entity—the short list

Federal employees and contractors—including the Dept of Homeland Security!—have been ordered to stay away from the WikiLeaks’ site and from documents made available by WikiLeaks. This prohibition includes the home use of newspapers and personal computers.

The U.S. Army, the FBI, and the Justice Department are threatening to prosecute WikiLeaks for “encouraging the theft of government property.”

The feds have teams of lawyers on the lookout for a pretext to prosecute WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange under the Espionage Act. The government has not shown a similar interest in prosecuting the scores of right-wing bloggers who have publicly called for his murder.

The Obama administration has asked (intimidated?) Britain, Germany, Australia, and other countries to find ways to prosecute WikiLeaks and its founder.

The Library of Congress has blocked access to WikiLeaks on its computers.

The feds have threatened to prosecute newspapers and websites that have published or posted documents made available by WikiLeaks.

The U.S. State Department has warned Columbia University that diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks are “still considered classified,” and that knowledge of them would “call into question students’ ability to deal with confidential information” should they apply for a job with that agency. (How would the government know that a private citizen had accessed such documents?)

Private people and entities that the U.S. government might have influenced in its war on WikiLeaks

WikiLeaks’ founder is on bail in Sweden after being charged with raping two women. Because there is no better way to discredit an organization than by charging its founder with sex crimes, and because the U.S. government appears to be doing all it can, short of murder, to destroy WikiLeaks, a scenario in which private citizens were paid to make false accusations appears conceivable.

Moneybookers and Paypal, sites that handled donations to WikiLeaks, have ended their affiliation with WikiLeaks.

Visa and Mastercard have stopped processing donations to WikiLeaks.

Amazon.com has cancelled its web-hosting contract with WikiLeaks.

Several of the above companies violated their contracts with their users and with Wikileaks when they cancelled their services.


However much you dislike WikiLeaks, please remember that it has never been charged with any crime (it is a felony to steal government documents, not to print them), and that the government’s many threats of prosecution of WikiLeaks, its founder, and those who reproduced material that WikiLeaks provided; as well as its attempt to encourage other nations to prosecute WikiLeaks or its founder can best be understood as harassment. Even if the feds can’t throw anyone in jail, they can discredit them or break them financially, and if they are willing to destroy one law-abiding person or entity today, is it unrealistic to worry they might go after another tomorrow?

Support WikiLeaks. Support it against the tyranny of the U.S. government and its lackeys. Support it if for no other reason than that the enemy of your enemy is your friend. Support it because no government that uses its vast resources to destroy a law-abiding person or organization is ever your friend. http://213.251.145.96/

How America honors the birth of God Incarnate and all that he stood for

America is the most populous Christian nation on earth, so it might well be asked by those of you in heathen lands how we celebrate the birth of our Lord Jesus, who was renowned for his unremitting opposition to greed, wealth, and consumerism; and his insistence on generosity, not to those who are able to be generous in return, but precisely to those who are unable to be generous in return.

First, we show our respect for the penitential season leading up to Christmas by only gaining eight to twelve pounds, which isn’t bad considering how much we weighed going into it.

On November 26 (the day after a major pig-out celebration known as Thanksgiving), we open our stores at 2:00 a.m. so the benefactors of the poor can get an early start on their Christmas gift buying at “Mark Down Prices.” Eager to take advantage of the “Early Bird Specials,” American Christians literally bring sleeping bags and stand—or rather lie—in line hours in advance. You can best understand this seemingly degrading ritual by comparing it to another revered religious practice known as self-flagellation.

The dedication of our citizenry to helping the poor is so intense in the weeks leading up to Jesus’ birthday, that there is a veritable shopping frenzy that continues until the night of Christmas Eve, when most stores close so their employees can go to church in order to be in the right frame of mind for distributing all of those colorfully wrapped packages to the poor on Christmas morning. “Ah,” you ask, “America is a rich country, is it not, so who are these poor people of whom you speak?” Well, sad to say, but America has many who lay claim to Christian Christmas generosity. They consist primarily of one’s spouse, children, parents, siblings, in-laws, friends, employer, and, of course, oneself.

When the holiday finally arrives, some impoverished children are so overwhelmed by the sheer volume of presents left by Santa, Mommy, Daddy, two grandmas, two grandpas, and assorted aunts and uncles, that they cry in frustration at opening them all. Truly, material excess requires some getting used to. Once all the poor people have gratefully received their holiday bounty, American Christians are so moved by the joy they brought into all those impoverished lives with the latest in Communist manufactured electronic gadgetry, that they just naturally want to go out bright and early on December 26, and give it another go. To help with this, the stores—which are understandably eager to support such a noble crusade—open in the wee hours yet again. This means that store employees have to miss out on time with their families in order to go to work in the middle of the night following two major holidays in a row, but they are only too happy to do it.

“Do American Christians observe Christmas in other ways?”

Oh, yes! Although buying gifts for indigent family, friends, and oneself most assuredly accounts for nearly all of the money spent, many churches do observe Christmas in other ways. For example, in most churches a colorfully robed choir sings happy holiday hymns amidst scores of potted poinsettias. A church near my house features a “living nativity” in which teenage girls and boys dress-up like angels, wise men, and shepherds, and take turns standing mutely around a manger that contains a fluorescently lit doll. Other churches “adopt” an entire poor family and drop gifts off at their house or apartment. Still others cook a turkey dinner for the indigent. And while most churches don’t meet on Christmas Day (making it one of the few birthday parties during which the guest of honor isn’t actually honored by his assembled friends), nearly all congregations listen to an Advent sermon in which they are reminded that “Jesus is the Reason for the Season” (at least since the church converted or murdered all those solstice celebrating heathens). They are also told that they really need to give up at least a little of their accustomed holiday avarice, if not this year, then next year for sure. After all, if America’s way of honoring Christ’s birth doesn’t represent the true nature and depth of its religious piety, what does?

The manner of his burial

We brought Baxter’s body home on Friday, December 10, and buried him that Saturday. He lay on his chair for most of Friday, but Peggy put him in a cardboard box with a couple of his toys and moved him to the garage when his body began to smell.

Six of us attended his funeral, but no words were spoken. I took him out of the box, and lowered him into his grave by means of the tablecloth on which Peggy had laid him. I then tucked the tablecloth over his body, and Josh brought buckets of earth that I had stored under the eave of the house because of the rain. I emptied these buckets into his grave and tamped the dirt with a shovel.

I don’t know to what extent getting Brewsky so soon after Baxter’s death has enabled me to avoid—or at least postpone—grieving, nor do I know how much having another dog has helped. I do know that every time I lose a loved one to death, my own desire to live becomes that much less. Of course, I still have a lot to live for.

The state of my health

I’ll be lying awake in pain from osteoarthritis, syringomyelia, chondromalacia, a Baker’s Cyst, and an aching back, but I’ll be high at the same time because I will have taken a few Percocets or a couple of Demerols. Anyway, I’ll be lying there unable to sleep—partly because of the pain, and partly because being high makes my mind bounce all over the place—and I’ll think to myself: “Snow, you really could put yourself to sleep, you know. All you would have to do would be to take a maximum dose of one narcotic or another and a maximum dose of one sleeping pill or another plus three Neurontins, two Tofranils, and one Requip, and wash it all down with a shot of vodka… Okay, forget the vodka, at least until I build up such a tolerance to the pills that they stop working.” Well, it’s tempting sometimes because I’ve been lying awake most nights for years. Of course, the downside would be that I might die, or the house might burn down around me without me waking up until the roof fell on my chest.

I take a fair amount of scary drugs, and sometimes I enjoy them, but I never take more than I need, and rarely as much as I need. I sometimes wonder which would actually be worse for my body, taking enough pills to make me sleep, or the exhaustion I experience from never getting enough sleep. I just know that I take more pills than I ever imagined I would, and, as a consequence of the pills and the pain, I never feel really good anymore, and I never feel really intelligent anymore either. In fact, I worry about how much more I can handle before my organs start to fail.

I got another referral to a neurologist (the same neurologist who did my vertebral biopsy when my C5 turned up osteonecrotic—aka dead), but she won’t see me until I get another MRI, but I can’t get another MRI until insurance okays it, but insurance can’t okay it until my orthopedist submits the proper form. Insurance denied the Synvisc injections, so I have that on appeal, only I have no idea how speedily the orthopedist’s staff is moving on it. I just know that medical staff people tend to thwart a patient at every turn if he becomes impatient. I think this is because overpaid doctors, who are mostly male, treat underpaid staff people, who are mostly female, disrespectfully, so staff people take it out on the only people who are lower on the totem pole than they are, the patients—especially the male patients, although I am not too sure about this part of my theory. But anyway…

The steroid shot I got earlier this month has already stopped working, so I’m positively screwed, pain-wise, until I either get the Synvisc, or the surgical neurologist cuts me open again, or the orthopedist cuts me open again. I’ve been waiting for one thing or another to happen for years, and the glacial slowness of the process really makes me envy people who are so rich that they can get on their Lear Jets, fly to the top specialists, and plop a hundred thousand dollars on the counter and not miss it. They can no doubt get themselves moved to the head of every line too, but I wouldn’t do that, and I wouldn’t mind even a little bit shooting any rich person who did. Of course, that's a politically incorrect thing to say just as saying that I sometimes enjoy being high on narcotics is a politically incorrect thing to say. But, you know, my fondest dream is that I would never need another pill for as long as I live. As for shooting rich people, I think we could do with a few less of those bloodsuckers.

Cat, $35; toys and accessories $783; damage to property $682; playing mean tricks on cat, priceless

Is my cat the feline equivalent of trailer trash if he ignores his new seven-story “cat tower,” but goes bananas over the box it came in?

If my cat hates his new bed and cat toys but loves the worn-out bed and beat-up dog toys that belonged to my recently deceased schnauzer, is my cat possessed by my schnauzer’s ghost?

When my wife and I are reading in bed at night, and we hear claws ripping through leather furniture and knickknacks crashing to the floor all over our house as our cat systematically demolishes everything we’ve worked 39 years to accumulate; would it be an overreaction to shoot, stab, strangle, or immolate our cat?

If I’m unable to wake my cat up to play during the evening hours even if I hold him upside down by his hind feet and shake him, but he wakes me up to play throughout the night by jumping on my face and yowling, does this mean that I adopted a night-shift cat when what I really wanted was an evening shift cat?

When my elderly and blind heeler is trying to make her way to her food bowl, why won’t my young and agile cat move to one side rather than wait patiently for the dog to get within range and then shred her nose?

My cat appears to love me, but I can’t escape the sneaky suspicion that it would kill me and play games with my corpse if I were suddenly reduced to the size of a mouse. Am I simply being paranoid?

Do you know where I can find the book Dogs are from God; Cats are from Satan?

What to name the baby?

Baxter wouldn't understand us getting a cat, and he would be incensed to learn that the cat prefers the chair that he sat in for eleven years, the one that is by the window that overlooks his grave. These things are hard for Peggy and me too.

Peggy "wasn't ready" to get another dog until four years after our last schnauzer, Wendy, died in 1993. That other dog was Bonnie, who is now 13. So, when she suggested going to the humane society two days after Baxter's death to look at dogs, I jumped at the chance for fear that I might not get another one for years. When none of the dogs clicked with us, we visited the cattery--just for the hell of it, you know--and there was a little mellow kitten that, wonder of wonders, we both liked. I want to name him Buzz (he purrs long and loud), but Peggy insists on Brewster, and Peggy usually gets her way. Just between you and me though, isn't Buzz a better name? I won't hate you--and Peggy will love you--if you disagree.

The manner of his passing

Following a pleasant but fatiguing walk and a quiet afternoon that he spent cuddling with Peggy, Baxter began coughing up blood and struggling to breathe last night. Peggy became frantic, and sat on the floor holding him and wailing. She asked me to call two nearby friends, which I did. First Ellie and then Shirley stayed with us until after midnight. Before they arrived, Peggy had said she was going to have the vet come to our house and euthanize Baxter today, but when the normal doses of the medications I gave him proved inadequate, she asked me to euthanize him immediately.

I gave him fourteen times his usual dose of a tranquilizer, but when he was still awake two hours later, I gave him four (human) doses of Percocet, but the entire night passed without him going to sleep, although he was able to rest peacefully in Peggy's arms. He continued to gasp for air, and his heart continued to beat at a phenomenal rate, but he no longer coughed, and he did not appear to be in pain or emotional distress. I saw no point in giving him more pills.

Peggy stayed up with Baxter all night, but I couldn't just sit with him because of his odors and my grief, so I stayed busy doing what I could to provide for his and Peggy's comfort, and I took two naps when there was nothing more to do. I think that, perhaps, Peggy is stronger than I because I couldn't have done what she did. Of course, I suppose it's also possible that she couldn't have done what I did.

As soon as the vet's office opened, I got an appointment to take Baxter in at 8:45 to be euthanized. Ellie went with us. Sean first gave him a shot containing three sedatives followed ten minutes later by an injection to stop his heart. Peggy and I held our hands over his strong little heart until he was gone. Sean was surprised that my own efforts to kill Baxter hadn't succeeded, and he had no explanation why this was so.

The hardest part of the night was to watch Baxter's desperate efforts to live and to think that we hadn't done everything we could to give him that chance. I was all but wild with remorse until Sean said that, if we had treated Baxter, it most likely would have resulted in five months of keeping him alive in pain and misery versus the three months of love and comfort he had enjoyed. Oh, but I want to be with him! Shirley offered that someday I will be, but I can't even begin to accept an idea for which there is no evidence. As I see it, in the entire history of the universe, Baxter existed for 11 years, three months, and three days, and now he has returned to everlasting nothingness. Yesterday at this time, he was taking a nap with Peggy. Now, he is gone, and it's very hard to take that in despite the fact that I have seen more deaths than most people.

As I write, Baxter is lying on the chair that he and Peggy shared for these many years, but he is cold and stiff and his eyes are glazed, so there is no comfort in touching him. Yet, when I look at him, he appears to be breathing. Above his chair is a window and a feeder that I built for the squirrels. Baxter loved to watch squirrels, and I would often hold him in my arms so that he could get a better view. When we brought him home from the vet today, I held him there for the last time. It was a gesture of questionable merit, but I was desperate to do something.

Peggy has been asleep for hours, but sadness kept me awake--that and the fact that I slept, perhaps, three hours last night. I couldn't sleep for the sadness. Ellie's son, Josh, was to dig Baxter's grave tomorrow, but I went ahead and did it. Perhaps, I will be in physical pain a long time for that, but it was what I wanted to do. It was all that was left for me to do. Now, I can be still with my grief.

The following is entitled Baxter's Lullaby. Peggy composed it in 1999, soon after we brought him home:

Sleep, baby sleep, sleep the whole night through.
Sleep, baby sleep, you know that I love you.
And when you wake, the night will turn to day.
Sleep, baby sleep, sleep the night away.

Dream, baby dream, of things you love to do.
Dream, baby dream, dream the whole night through.
And when you wake, your dreams will make you smile.
Dream, baby dream, dream a little while.


This is Baxter's Nonsense Verse that Peggy wrote a few months later:

Baxter-waxter, wally-woo
Best'est dog I ever knew.
Baxter-waxter, wally-west
Best'est dog of all the rest.

Baxter-waxter, wally-wee
Best'est dog for you and me.
Baxter-waxter, wally-wuv,
Best'est dog a girl could love.

Isabella and Baxter

Isabella moved in a few days ago. I took her back out, but it was so cold that I couldn’t bring myself to leave her, so I brought her in again and gave her some fruit. She was quite hungry. She disappears everyday only to turn up again in some unexpected place at night. I let her crawl around on my hand while I watch TV, and then I put her to bed on her fruit plate. I placed an upside-down bowl partway on top of the plate, so Isabella could sleep in the dark, but she prefers to sleep on top of the bowl.

I have a hornets’ nest hanging in the den, and Peggy worried that Isabella was but a precursor to hordes that were about to hatch out, but I assured her that there is no mistaking a yellow jacket for a bald-face hornet, and this made her feel some better, but she still won't cuddle up with Isabella.

Oregon doesn’t have nearly as many kinds of wasps as Mississippi did, and I miss them. One night in 1977 when I was building our house down there, I was smoking pot while painting the upper portion of a vaulted ceiling. A few dozen large red wasps were flying aimlessly in the vicinity of a light that was on the wall above the second floor balcony. They had come indoors that day, had been unable to find their way out, so were now awake hours past their bedtime with no hope of going home again. I was atop a sixteen-foot ladder, a bucket of paint in one hand and a brush in the other, and I was moving ever closer to these wasps.

In my altered condition, I believed I was able to tune into their mental state, and that we were on the same wavelength, this despite their increasing agitation each time I moved in their direction. I kept advancing anyway, certain that their anxiety was not prompted by me but by the smell of paint in the hot, humid air. When I got within five feet of them, they began feinting dives at my head, and otherwise making it clear that they were about to nail me. I finally descended in the belief that my connection with them might not have been imaginary—after all, they had shown more patience than I had a right to expect.

When my father and I painted houses together, he would destroy red wasp nests by dousing them with gasoline. The moment it touched them, the wasps would fall straight to the ground by the hundreds. Then, he would knock the nest down. The rest of the day, the ones who hadn’t been on the nest would fly around aimlessly, but without a family to defend, they seldom stung.

I built a home for solitary wasps, and every year I have a few small nests of yellow wasps in my toolshed. I used to remove these nests, but most years, I would forget to look up to see that they were there until the summer was half over. After a few years of brushing my head against them without ever once being stung, I left them in peace. I think of wasps in the same way that I think of a lot of other creatures that have the power to hurt or even kill me, but don’t go around looking for an excuse to do so. All that they ask of me is that I respect their boundaries.

Unfortunately, this is hard to do with aggressive wasps that I don’t even see—like yellow jackets that live in the ground. There have been years when Peggy and I and both dogs were stung many times because we walked over their holes while hiking. I’ve even seen Peggy stand on top of a hole brushing yellow jackets out of Baxter’s fur while more were pouring out at them. She’s a funny girl when her maternal instincts go into overdrive.

I’ve thought a lot about what is right for Isabella. Her family is dead, and she has no real home and no work to do, so it might be better if I left her to die in the cold. Whether it’s a plant, a dog, or a wasp, once I take something in, I feel morally obligated to care for it, yet I don’t always know what is best.

Night before last, Baxter started moaning and shivering as he struggled to breathe. I have many drugs that might relieve his distress, but which might also kill him. I tried to talk the matter over with Peggy, but she didn’t have much to say, and I concluded that this was one of those situations that she wanted me to handle. I was about to give him a few grains of a Percocet when I remembered that I had a tranquilizer that we give to Bonnie anytime there are fireworks, so I gave a quarter tablet of it to Baxter. That should have been a low dose, but it knocked Baxter on his ass. In fact, I thought I had killed him, and I cried off and on for the next six hours while I waited for him to die. He looked so little and so pitiful that I didn’t know how I could bear it. Every time I thought I had pulled myself together, I would cry some more.

At one point, I tried to rouse him by standing him up, but his every leg splayed out in a different direction. Six hours later, I woke him up enough to pee, but as he was standing in the yard struggling to stay on his feet, Bonnie—who is blind—knocked him over. I couldn’t help but laugh at my two elderly dogs, but five minutes later, I was crying again. Now that I’m getting old and have seen a lot of death, you might think I would handle these things better, but the truth is that death seems even heavier to me now than it did when I was young.

The next day, Baxter was alert and active only to sink again last night. This time, I gave him an eighth of a tranquilizer, and that amount seemed just about right. Peggy suggested that we call the vet to be sure the pills are safe for him, but I told her that I didn’t see any need for that since he’s dying anyway. My only goal is to keep him comfortable. When I can no longer do that, I would prefer to euthanize him myself, but Peggy is determined that the vet do it.

Peggy becomes ever more unreasonable

Peggy went to bed before I did last night because she had a migraine, so I put the dogs out to go potty just before I went to bed. I forgot to let them back in because I’m not used to letting them out, and they froze to death. Of course, I didn’t know this because I was asleep. Anyway, Peggy got up first—having gone to bed first—and couldn’t find the dogs. After she had looked all over the house, it finally occurred to her to look outside, and there they were, two little pupsicles, right by the front door.

Since I could hardly bring them back to life anyway, and since I certainly don’t believe in the “power of prayer,” she could have let me sleep, but, no, not Peggy. She was upset, so, by god, she wanted me to be upset too. Putting that aside, I tried to comfort her in my usual compassionate manner by pointing out that they were old and sickly anyway, so their deaths probably saved us a lot of vet bills and carpet cleanings, but that just seemed to make her madder. I’m really tired of Peggy getting pissed-off over every little thing. To hear her tell it, she never makes mistakes. Yeah, right, when she’s asleep.

That was our second fight this week. The first occurred when she found out that I had invited my EOAWSGI group (Embittered Old Atheists Who Spit on God and Innocence) over to smoke dope and watch porn the same night that her VYCWEEEV group (Voluptuous Young Christians Who Eschew Evil and Embrace Virtue) was supposed to come over to bake brownies and look at pictures of a church they built in Haiti last summer so that all those starving people would have a place to pray for food.

I suggested that we bake the brownies with the dope inside and then watch the porn together, but she said that my idea was asinine because my atheist friends are all foul-mouth jerks who only want to make god-fearing Christians look stupid. She then said that my friends are all idiots, just like me; to which I replied that it takes one to know one and that all her friends are all idiots twice over, just like her. Things went downhill from there. I don’t know why Peggy can’t treat me the way she did when we had our first date in 1971. When you get married, you don’t expect your spouse to go all to hell this way.

Peggy offers a **#%*! suggestion

Peggy sometimes offers subtle criticisms regarding the subjects I write about. For example,

“Why the fuck don’t you ever write about something more interesting than religion?” (Peggy will argue that that she didn’t say the f___ word, but since I am “overly sensitive to criticism,” as my mother put it, I always HEAR the f___ word at the least suggestion that I'm anything less than perfect.)

“Okay, Sweet Lambikins Baby Lovey Dovey Pumpkin Strudel, what do you suggest?” (I ask smilingly).

“Well, how about what you just said?”

What I had just said was that Fox News’ policy of continually assuring its listeners that it’s “fair and balanced,” is not only unforgivably redundant, it also suggests a cynical attempt to appeal to an audience that is too stupid to distinguish between a claim and a reality (“Your president is not a crook;” “I didn’t have sex with that woman;” “I know the Bible is true because the Bible says it’s true;” and my own dear father’s favorite, “I’m going to be honest with you”). Furthermore, it reeks of Orwell:

“Political language is designed to…give an appearance of solidity to pure wind;”

of Lenin: “If you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes truth;”

of Hitler: “Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it;”

and even of that bumbling little bastard who was our last president: “See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again…to kind of catapult the propaganda.”


“But isn’t what I just said rather obvious, Peggy Darling Dearest?”

“Not to some people.”

Which is precisely why I had said it to Peggy. Intelligent though she is, she doesn’t know the difference between a Republican and a Democrat, a Catholic and a Shiite, a Brit Hume and a Jon Stewart, simply because it is all so senseless and depressing that she doesn’t want to know the difference.

Sometimes, I think Peggy is onto something, yet I remain inveterately incapable of “turning on, tuning in, and dropping out,” because if there's safety to be had, surely it lies in at least knowing from which direction danger approaches. Besides, human inanity can be awfully entertaining at times.

Liquidambar styraciflua

I could travel the world and never see anything more lovely than a sweet gum in the fall (do click on the photo). This raises the question of why I should travel the world. I am far from opposing such expeditions, yet it seems to me that most of them are inspired by nothing more noble than the desire to escape obliviousness at home by imagining oneself to have experienced something abroad.

A relative was here recently. He had driven 5,300 miles in two weeks and planned to complete the final third of his journey in one week. He explained that it's sometimes possible to see two national parks in a single day if one takes a business-like approach (i.e. treat them as a prostitute to be done with rather than as a lover to romance). His own scheme was to pick a park’s most celebrated feature—which the federal government would have conveniently situated near a commodious parking lot—take a snapshot of it, and drive on to the next park. He had already bagged Rushmore, Yellowstone, and Crater Lake, and had his sites set on Yosemite, Sequoia, the Grand Canyon, and, last but not least, heaven. I’ve heard that, despite its extreme heat and various other inconveniences, hell does have a first-rate postal service, so I’m hoping Earl will send me a snapshot of Yahweh to go alongside his other trophies.