TMBWitW and I had to make a very hard decision this last week. Actually, it wasn’t a hard decision, so much as it was hard to make the decision. The decision was made when we decided to keep Logan as our youngest dog, that when the time came we would not be selfish by wanting to keep him around. It was hard to admit to ourselves and each other that the time had come.

For those who have been following the story of Logan: he is in pain most of the time now, and nothing can be done. In order to provide him with the best quality of life, and not prolong any kind of suffering, we will be sending him Home this Saturday morning (unless he gets much worse sooner). You can bet your bottom dollar we are going to be spoiling him as much as we can this week.

If I don’t publish a lot this week, please understand.

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As my loyal reader knows, I usually take the weekend and spend most of it with TMBWitW and our daughter, MEG, only occasionally checking e-mail and what not.

On Saturday, Texas Fred posted about Tyson Foods in Shelbyville, Tennessee, and their union’s new contract, which drops Labor Day in favor of the islamic or muslim holiday of eat al’s fart eid al-fitr, which marks the end of ramadan.

The discussion is lively, as usual, over at Fred’s. There is a rumbling of mostly “How dare they start capitulating to the muslims” and a general air of boycott is permeating the area.

My take? I think that Tyson (and the union) is setting a bad precedent – this is a nation founded on Christian ideals, and allowing an aggressive cult like islam to start dictating how the people of this nation should act is the start of a slippery slope to allowing muslims to insist that sharia law be implemented here.

As long as I have breath, that ain’t gonna happen without protest and defense of our system of law.

I think a boycott is a good idea. Add Tyson Foods overall to the list, along with Citgo (Chavez-run oil), and this list of Tyson products in particular. If you happen to know of subsidy holdings of Tyson, let’s hit them there, too.

Well, it’s otherwise a gorgeous morning (barely in the high 80’s this morning, bit of a cold-snap dontchaknow) and MEG was up early. We’ve had breakfast, and she is watching her favorite clown fish. I think I’ll cruise around the ‘net a bit and then see what she wants to do next. Maybe we’ll work on the letters again today.

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Do you all remember Logan?

He has polyneuropathy – the muscles in his back half ignore the nerves and the messages they send, so he doesn’t walk very well due to under-development of the leg muscles. Sometimes, he gets frustrated with not being able to get up and romp with the other dogs.

Friday evening he needed to go out. He tried several times to get going, but then he gave up. I tried to help him stand up a few more times, but he wasn’t ready to try, or something, but I finally got my game face on and lifted him (deadweight, no assistance from him, about 115 pounds of dog) up and through the back door, got him balanced on his legs, and he started tottering off to take care of his business. He kind of stutter stepped once, when I was almost straightening back up, and I made a lunge to keep him upright. That was where I made the mistake.

I overextended and exerted in that overextended position. I went down hard.

So, there I was, crumpled on the back patio. TMBWitW heard my whimpers requests for help. After mumbling something about stubborn old Marines again, she did everything she could to help me up. We ended up using the box dolly (with her standing on the blade, and me using the back as a hand ladder) to get me into a walking position. With great difficulty I managed to get to the bed. Meanwhile, TMBWitW called our chiropractor and he outlined a treatment for the muscles of hot bath, ice packs, heating pad, ice packs, alternating these for about an hour.

It worked, pretty darn well too. By Saturday morning when I woke up, I could almost move without pain. By Saturday evening I had regained most of my movement, and now I am pain-free and able to enjoy a full range of movement – well, as full as I have had recently.

Promises have been made to not attempt such a maneuver in the future.

How was your weekend?

Thank you for stopping by, In GOD We Trust, God bless you all, Time, Inc. is a bunch of weasels, listen to The O Word on BlogTalkRadio, Wear Red on Fridays, and support Warriors for Innocence!

Back in the day (younger readers will refer to this era as “pre-history”) when Marines were Marines and Sailors were afraid to talk to them, yes, back when I served, there was a competition of sorts between the branches of the services. That is to say, each one was sure that the others were mere poseurs, wimps, wanna-bes and wash-outs. I served on several posts where there were multiple services (Presidio of Monterey, for one) and it was quite plain to the eye that the differences between the services were deeply ingrained and would never change. (although, given the choice, I would avail myself of the dining facilities of the Navy and the E-clubs of the Air Force as often as possible)

Something seems to have changed over the years. Looking back through several years of memories, it seems that more and more often whenever I come across a veteran, the difference in branch of service just got less and less important. Not less important to the individual, but less important than the fact that the individual had served this country.

I used to only want to talk to Marine vets. Oh, how many personal histories did I dismiss as “not important” because the speaker was not a Marine? I have learned through trial and trouble, time and temerity, that all service histories, taken together, are what makes up the fabric of the Armed Forces as a whole.

Now, I see every veteran as a brother or sister in arms, a comrade with whom I would share my last dollar or fire my last shot to protect. Marine, Army, Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard, or any of the reserve components, have my undying respect and gratitude for their service.

Some might see this as a sign of weakness; other will recognize growth and maturity when they read this. I prefer to think of it as finally realizing that without any of the services, it would be pretty darned tough to have gotten as far as we did as a country.

Although I give my Navy friends grief, they know that I respect them for their service. The same goes for others I have contact with. I may kid and rib, but underneath it all is the basic love for the fellow fighter, the bond that is forged in service for a common goal. We all served this country, in a capacity we thought we were best suited for. The end result is the important thing – freedom still rings.

I’ve said all that to introduce what I’ve been trying to work into a post since I received it almost two and a half weeks ago. The writer is not a Marine (although I think he would have made a good one), and if he had tried to have this conversation with me while we were serving I would have dismissed it and him as irrelevant, since he wasn’t a Marine. A Navy veteran and friend of mine, Gawfer, popped the following piece to me during The O Word on July 11, 2008. I was going to write a post around it, and I have tried (and failed) to expound and expand on the basic idea in this bit of writing, and have gotten nowhere. The original words are the most powerful, and anything I could do to explain it would be an utter failure:

Whether the founders followed the Christian faith or not, they understood that Biblical values formed the basis of the not only the republic but English Law, and that the republic would be destroyed if the people’s knowledge of those values should ever be lost.

This brings me to the head of the spear, so to speak. Understanding that our constitution is man’s interpretation of God’s divine law, one must assume that at times the constitution will fall short of providing adequate solutions to humanistic transgressions. When this occurs, such as the recent ruling against capital punishment extending beyond murder, and the California Supreme Court’s ruling to overturn the vote of the people regarding gay marriage, the solution is not to interject one’s opinion or to seek a populous consensus as was done in both cases, but to go to the source of our constitution; divine law.

Because secularism has pervaded our society and our nation has become mostly agnostic, our appointed judges are ruling based on a popular opinion rather than using fundamental principles of interpretation. It is very clear that in both cases, the decisions would have been exactly opposite had they adhered to the basic truths and applied biblical principles to each case. Thankfully, we are still ‘One Nation, Under God’; but that is slowly slipping away.

So, there you have it. Time and age have taken the age off of the animosity between branches of service, but at the same time it has forged a stronger bond between like-minded people. As I mentioned in a comment, when BZ urged me to keep on keeping on, if we don’t all “keep on” there won’t be anything worth keeping.

I just re-read this entry, before posting it. I realize it’s a bit of a mind-bender, and it doesn’t really flow as cleanly as it should, but I’m going to leave it up. After all, it is Monday, and this is the result of several themes that have been roiling around in my head all weekend. Have fun keening the depths of my mind.

Thank you for stopping by, In GOD We Trust, God bless you all, Time, Inc. is a bunch of weasels, listen to The O Word on BlogTalkRadio, Wear Red on Fridays, and support Warriors for Innocence!

So – the snooze button got the mileage again today. That’s what I get for partying until the wee hours.

Yah, right. I was updating the Wisconsin Cartters page (reformatting the text of the book, so you can actually read it) and was in bed by 2230. Ish. For whatever reason, my body is in a state of needing something – can’t quite put the finger on it, but I’m sure it will come to me. Then I’ll be all over it and get fixed right up.

MEG woke up about 0615 (early for her) and her first words were “Good morning, Daddy. I love you so much!”

I wish.

Her first utterance of the day was “Stitch?” and right after her waffle she watched Lilo and Stitch and then went back to bed.

I’ve got some new pictures in the header rotation – with a big old THANK YOU to Richard who so graciously allowed me to borrow his sunsets.

BZ has a link to an article about the new citizenship test. I scored 100%, in a wonderful paroxysm of lucky guesses and basic knowledge. How did you do?

Thank you for stopping by, God bless you all, Time, Inc. is a bunch of weasels, listen to The O Word on BlogTalkRadio, Wear Red on Fridays, and support Warriors for Innocence!