Sadness, mortality and the end of the world:
1) My sister Ann's beloved dog Priscilla was hit by a car Saturday.
For now, Priscilla seems to be okay. She was hit (and dragged a little ways) around her tail, which as Ann points out, is spinal cord territory. But urinary functions are normal, and she's eating and drinking, and doesn't recoil when Ann touches her. I have to think she'll be okay--I have to, because it's too sad to think otherwise--since dogs are amazingly resilient. Maybe she'll never be quite the same...but maybe she will.
You're not supposed to care so much about animals. They're just lower life forms, you know? But I spend a little time every single day thinking of beloved Pinback and Scotchie and Elinore. Certainly, if anything happened to Delmar, I really don't know what I'd do. (I'm not worried at all about Monika. She's nearly forteen and, even as I write this, is tearing around the apartment like a kitten. Monika will outlive me.)
2) As a hardcore James Bond fanatic, I would be remiss if I didn't note the passing of Lois Maxwell at the age of 80. She was, of course, Miss Moneypenny, perenially pining for her beloved James, the recipient of some rather cruel brushoffs from the world's coolest misogynist. Maxwell was there from the very beginning, Dr. No in 1962, all the way through 1985's regrettable A View To A Kill. She played bridesmaid to three different Bonds (literally so in On Her Majesty's Secret Service), and despite the waxworks qualities she and the aged Roger Moore brought to some of their later efforts, it was always nice to see her. She owned the role, and though it's been recast in newer Bonds, it's never been properly filled.
3) Seymour Hersh's dogged reporting on the buildup to the Iraq invasion and all subsequent events has always been denied by the Bushinistas, and largely ignored by the mainstream press. Time tends to prove, however, that Hersh's sources are accurate, and the conclusions he draws come true.
Hersh has a piece in the current New Yorker detailing the plans Bush and Cheney--mostly Cheney--are drawing up for a strike against Iran. Opposition to this plan from high-placed military officials seems to be dwindling, so it's all but a done deal.
So even though our military resources are stretched unbearably thin in Iraq and Afghanistan, we're about to invade a third country.
Anybody else envisioning mushroom clouds set to Vera Lynn? We'll meet again...
