PILGRIM'S PROGRESS: Mr. Piggums Gallery'

Mr. Piggums/PILGRIM

His Rescuers

The Boy was a wreck.

Where was found and whence he was rescued.

Member, Dog-of-the-Month Club!

Making Progress

SAFE AT HOME!

Me And Mr P, chillin, aloha-style^^^...

PILGRIM'S PROGRESS:
|>Late last year, around Thanksgiving, we were contacted by our friends at

Valencia County Animal Control

about a cruelty case kiddo they had just taken custody of PILGRIM was chained his whole life (appx 9yrs) on the hottest of days & the coldest of nights. All alone....& regularly "attacked by other dogs". He was emaciated, covered in wounds all over his body (many fresh & many in different stages of healing) including trauma to his right eye which resulted in loss of vision. He suffered from Ehrlichia & Anaplasmosis as well as advanced periodontal disease & he was riddled with infection. PILGRIM is a very sweet #ElderBull who was tormented & horribly neglected VCAC charged his people with Animal Cruelty, they were found guilty in court & were ordered to pay $800 to NMDOG in restitution. We hope they will never elect to get another dog again, but like we tell all of our kids...."Living well is the best revenge & its time to get busy".

We tended to all of PILGRIMS medical needs & held his paw during months of physical & emotional healing. We put his Christmas wishes on the NMDOG Giving Tree, we took him on TV as our #KRQE #PetOfTheWeek, he was featured as the

Quality Mazda

NMDOG of the Month, we LoVed & adored him, we let him nibble on our earlobes & we taught him good boy manners Despite all of his wonderful, #AdoraBull & endearing qualities...due to PILGRIMS ElderBull age, a lifetime spent fighting off other dogs at the end of his chain as a means of survival & never living inside of a home before (as well as a handful of special needs medical conditions).....finding his soft spot in the world was going to be a bit more challenging. We are used to challenges here at NMDOG, they build character...& they also build NMDOG programs like "Home Sanctuary" ....which our oinky little PIGIMS certainly qualifies for!

As part of the NMDOG #HomeSanctuary Program, we pledge to provide for PILGRIMS financial lifetime care as long as he is happy in a perfect just right FoReVeR Piggy home We are so incredibly fortunate to be able to offer this program to our special needs babies who have roadblocks & challenges to traditional adoption. Because of you #NMDOGvillage, as well as our super dedicated Veterinary Care providers, the best Home Sanctuary Care Parents you could ever imagine & the ongoing support of the good humans at the

The Grey Muzzle Organization

....we are able to offer these deserving Dogs the very best outcome. The NMDOG Home Sanctuary Program is certainly a #TEAMeffort & it is, paws down, 110% worth it!

PILGRIMS #FoReVeRfoster Dad is not new to the Home Sanctuary Family. He was also FoReVeR Foster Dad to our dearly beloved NMDOG NOBEL NOBEL was chained all 10 years of his life. Thankfully, he was able to spend his last (& very best) in the good company of our friend Woody & his NMDOG Foster Sister TASHA. TASHA has since found her happily ever FoReVeR & Woody was again in need of a couch potato companion. Its working out very nicely & everyone is content & happy....we are so grateful that PILGRIM has his very own home now!! He really needed one AND we needed to keep our promise to TASHA & NOBEL...which was to find their Dad another Senior Dog in need to chill with. We recently made it officially official so PILGRIM & Woody each bid on an Hawaiian shirt in the

NMDOG 2020 Summer Auction

to celebrate #StinkinAdorable Aloha!!

Thank you to each of you that makes this incredibly important work possible. Without you, we are nothing & without NMDOG, so many would continue to suffer. #HappyTail #UNchained #OurPromiseIsFoReVeR #SeniorDogsRule #OneEyeNoProblem #LivingHisBestLife #PibblePower

If you are able, please consider a tax deductible donation to help us continue to provide Home Sanctuary safety & security to the 14 kiddos currently in the NMDOG Home Sanctuary Program. You can #DONATE securely via the donate button on this post. 

THANK YOU Xo We & the Dogs grrrrreatly appreciate you!!!"

https://www.krqe.com/news/albuquerque-metro/nmdog-serves-and-protects-the-forgotten-dogs-of-new-mexico/?fbclid=IwAR29SZZ9q6C__qDkjDARx7v5foc7HZvU-_G2aA_8FYmP3iSbSNu3WD6NClg

SELF-SUFFICIENCY for Rugged Individualists:

 

SELF-SUFFICIENCY for Rugged Individualists:

"A day in the Life of Suzy, Republican mom.

~Suzy gets up at 6 a.m. and fills her coffeepot with water to prepare her morning coffee. The water is clean and good because some tree-hugging liberal fought for minimum water-quality standards.

~With her first swallow of coffee, she takes her daily medication. Her medications are safe to take because some stupid commie liberal fought to insure their safety and that they work as advertised.

~All but $10 of her medications are paid for by her employer's medical plan because some liberal union workers fought their employers for paid medical insurance - now Suzy gets it too.

~She prepares her morning breakfast, bacon and eggs. Suzy's bacon is safe to eat because some girly-man liberal fought for laws to regulate the meat packing industry.

~In the shower, Suzy reaches for her shampoo. Her bottle is properly labeled with each ingredient and its amount in the total contents because some crybaby liberal fought for her right to know what she was putting on her body and how much it contained.

~Suzy dresses, walks outside and takes a deep breath. The air she breathes is clean because some environmentalist wacko liberal fought for laws to stop industries from polluting our air.

~She walks to the subway station for her government-subsidized ride to work. It saves her considerable money in parking and transportation fees because some fancy-pants liberal fought for affordable public transportation, which gives everyone the opportunity to be a contributor.

~Suzy begins her work day. She has a good job with excellent pay, medical benefits, retirement, paid holidays and vacation because some lazy liberal union members fought and died for these working standards. Suzy's employer pays these standards because Suzy's employer doesn't want his employees to call the union.

~If Suzy is hurt on the job or becomes unemployed, she'll get a worker compensation or unemployment check because some stupid liberal didn't think she should lose her home because of her temporary misfortune.

~Soon, it's noon and Suzy needs to make a bank deposit so she can pay some bills. Suzy's deposit is federally insured by the FSLIC because some godless liberal wanted to protect Suzy's money from unscrupulous bankers who ruined the banking system before the Great Depression.

~Suzy has to pay her Fannie Mae-underwritten mortgage and her below-market federal student loan because some elitist liberal decided that Suzy and the government would be better off if she was educated and earned more money over her lifetime.

~Suzy now gets home from work. She plans to visit her father this evening at his farm home in the country. She gets in her car for the drive. Her car is among the safest in the world because some America-hating liberal fought for car safety standards.

~She arrives at her childhood home. Her generation was the third to live in the house financed by Farmers' Home Administration because bankers didn't want to make rural loans. The house didn't have electricity until some big-government liberal stuck his nose where it didn't belong and demanded rural electrification 30 years ago.

~Suzy's happy to see her father, who is now retired. Her father lives on Social Security and a union pension because some wine-drinking, cheese-eating liberal made sure he could take care of himself so Suzy wouldn't have to.

~Suzy gets back in her car for the ride home, and turns on a radio talk show. The radio host keeps saying that liberals are bad and conservatives are good. He doesn't mention that Republicans have fought against every protection and benefit Sue enjoys throughout her day. ~Suzy agrees: "We don't need those big-government liberals ruining our lives! After all, I'm self-made and believe everyone should take care of themselves, just like I have."

How I spent Friday, May 8, 1970

 

• 
  
  
  

• My recollections of May 8, 1970 outside the SUB at UNM:

•  

• My name is John Konopak, formerly Sergeant in the USAF, Sept 64 to Sept 68.
  Not a combat vet, I am a Vietnam Era survivor. I was one of the lucky ones. I could have been sent anywhere, but I got Germany. The military can send you anywhere and you go, tell you to do anything and you DO it. I made my rank, kept my nose clean and got out.

• 
  I separated in Sept ‘68, and I started at UNM that semester. I had become radicalized over the previous two years, so when I went back to school, I immediately joined V V A W = VietNam Veterans against the War at UNM.

•  

• I was on campus that day--may 8-- because I had classes and there were meetings and rallies. As I recall, the day before, word had come down that a load of heavy stuff was gonna land on the students who had occupied the SUB, the Student Union Building for a couple of days. I think they also occupied the president’s office, whose name was Ferrel Heady, which was a kind of empty gesture, since he was out of town.

•  

• Furious activism was everywhere that week since the War Crimes at Kent State on that Monday. The Demonstrations were organized and planned for that Friday. The student organizers appealed to the VVAW to act as marshals if disturbances occurred, and so it was agreed, which was how, that Friday noon, I was between standing on the causeway between the Guard with their bayonets fixed, and angry students on the plaza and causeway, being pressured to retreat by the glittering blades.
  
  

• I remember watching the Deuce-and-a-halfs pull up along Central, right across the street from where the Frontier restaurant would be, the next year, and watch as the combat-clad Guardsmen debauched, fixed their bayonets, formed up, and marched up the causeway towards the SUB plaza which was teeming with activity..  There was a sense of unreality watching the scene unfold. I, myself, was both angry and fearful. We ALL were aware that the Ohio Guard were the culprits in the KSU tragedy. We didn’t have the faintest idea what the NM Guard had been ordered to do. 

• 
  Soi, I was fearful. But I was angry, too. Raging and furious after Kent State. I was (am) a veteran, had a Good Conduct medal  and a Presidential Unit Citation! to prove it. What the HELL were these yahoos doing pulling their steel on me? The fury arose as it always does, from the futility.

•  

• I recall that radio and t-v stations were more or less inciting the good burghers of Burque to go watch the hippies get their A****S kicked. There was very little sympathy for the students, off-campus. Burque in 1970 was a VERY Conservative place.

•  

• Other than a couple of Guardsmen waving their bayonets in my face, I had no direct contact, no interactions at all.

•  

• I do not believe I suffered any injury other than incurring an abiding loathing for cheering by-standers.

• 
  Issues of administration, etc, are all WAY over my pay grade.

 

• My strongest memory of that day was the smell of a lot of blood in the sun.
  
  My feelings that day were not greatly different than today: Feelings of restless, hopeless, furious futility. There was really nothing "WE" could do then. There was really nothing we can do now….

•  

The Viet Nam (Era) Veterans' Dilemma:

How to account for serving "honorably" in such an essentially dishonorable cause?
Trying to reconcile that aporia is ONE source of PTSD, I beieve.

 

The difference between VietNam and previous wars was that it was so transparently cynical, like all the little wars that have followed.

 

 Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose….

 

• 1.  What is your recollection of the events as they happened?

•  

• 2.  What information sources did people have as events were unfolding?

•  

• 3.  Did you have any direct interaction with the National Guard or law enforcement officers?

•  

• 4.  Were there repercussions for you in the aftermath, e. g., mental, physical, academic, or financial effects?

•  

• 5.  What lessons were learned or should have been learned by the different actors involved: UNM administration, state government, National Guard, law enforcement officials, students, media?

•  

• 6.  When you think back to that day or that time period, are there any particular emotions that rise to the surface?

What's a Little Gravity,Right???

A PARABLE ABOUT PERCEPTION
One time, in Looseyanna, I watched a colony of ants trying to get the carcass of a cockroach up a wall to their nest above the drop-ceiling. 
They were very effective getting the carcass UP the wall.
But there they met an insuperable and implacable obstacle: the metal lip where the ceiling tiles rested: EVERY single time they essayed to navigate the 90 degree traverse, the carcass succumbed to gravity and fell back to the floor.
Where, I imagined, the ants down there thought it was raining dead cockroaches from heaven above.

Propaganda 102: Notes

This WILL be on the test!
--You don't have to control people's thoughts if you supply what they think about and the words they use.
--We GOTTA to stop acting like "the Media" are independent agents.They are NOT. They're private property!
--Middull Markins aren't sheep, they're moths.
--Agit-prop doesn't lose any effectiveness because it's untrue.
--Every Twitlerian slander, every nugget of mis-information, every spin, every lie becomes part of the discourse, of the narrative.
--It's not about "money." Dat's just a tool. It's about POWER, ruling the world. Compelling others to do your will. And THAT now seems possible.
--Adverse effects of a vaccine, if any, would be non-transmissible; adverse effects of the virus are pandemic. Is there a "choice?"

The "PRIVILEGED LIFE"

White privilege is real. Take a minute to compare a Black person’s experience today.
I have privilege as a white person because I can do all of these things without thinking twice:
I can go birding in the Park (#ChristianCooper)
I can go jogging (#AmaudArbery)
I can relax in the comfort of my own home (#BothemSean and #AtatianaJefferson)
I can ask for help after being in a car crash (#JonathanFerrell and #RenishaMcBride)
I can have a cellphone (#StephonClark)
I can leave a party to get to safety (#JordanEdwards)
I can play loud music (#JordanDavis)
I can sell CDs (#AltonSterling)
I can sleep (#AiyanaJones)
I can walk from the corner store (#MikeBrown)
I can play cops and robbers (#TamirRice)
I can go to church (#Charleston9)
I can walk home with Skittles (#TrayvonMartin)
I can hold a hair brush while leaving my own bachelor party (#SeanBell)
I can party on New Years (#OscarGrant)
I can get a normal traffic ticket (#SandraBland)
I can lawfully carry a weapon (#PhilandoCastile)
I can break down on a public road with car problems (#CoreyJones)
I can shop at Walmart (#JohnCrawford)
I can have a disabled vehicle (#TerrenceCrutcher)
I can read a book in my own car (#KeithScott)
I can be a 10yr old walking with our grandfather (#CliffordGlover)
I can decorate for a party (#ClaudeReese)
I can ask a cop a question (#RandyEvans)
I can cash a check in peace (#YvonneSmallwood)
I can take out my wallet (#AmadouDiallo)
I can run (#WalterScott)
I can breathe (#EricGarner)
I can live (#FreddieGray)
I CAN BE ARRESTED WITHOUT THE FEAR OF BEING MURDERED (#GeorgeFloyd)
The list omits Breonna Taylor, the 26-year-old EMT killed by police officers in her own home on March 13. #BlackLivesMatter

A Litany of Ills and Injuries

I have been aging less than gracefully.
Understand, I was NEVER graceful in youth, either.
Somewhere, I skipped over the automatizing motor function part. I was no kinda dancer, replacing skill with enthusiasm
But advancing age has found me increasingly troubled with balance matters. Bi-pedal locomotion is considerably more difficult and complex than it might appear.
So, in anticipation of "care" I may now or in the future require, my sister assembled a list of what she and my other sibs knew to be my physical infirmities. In reviewing them, I shall say in advance, I don't know how I manage (badly?)
1. I am a fall risk, with balance issues (but am getting PT for that)
2. I have two stents in the cardiac artery.
3. I have partial occlusion of both carotid arteries.
4. I have (mild) osteoporois.
5. I have sciatica.
6. I have COPD.
7. I have high blood pressure, controlled by meds.
8. I have GERD.
9. I have not-quite crippling peripheral neuropathy in my feet and toes.
10. I have had significant muscle loss, such that when I've fallen, I've had great difficulty getting up.
11. I live alone.
A-Men!

Hopalong to the Bar-20...

I was a "Hopalong" kinda fella, in my youth: Bill Boyd, dressed all in black, on that glorious, white horse!
My dear, long-departed grand-dad usta sit me on his knee and read to me from the Clarence Mulford books about Hoppy and his side-kicks on the Bar20, while the old fella smoked a cigar and sipped cognac from a snifter. (I'm sure that that contributed to my later lust for reading.)
I went back to look at them, as a adult, and was surprised (and revulsed) at the casual racism and sexism they so cavalierly dispensed. It wasn't unusual for the time--indeed, it was quite common--but it helps to explain how such attitudes could persist and flourish. They were completely unexceptional for the time.
Also, that "Hopalong" was called that because he had a wooden leg:
>>In 1905, author Clarence E. Mulford wrote a novel about a hard-edged, hard-talking cowboy who walked with a wooden leg and his sidekicks at the Bar 20 Ranch. That cowboy was Hopalong Cassidy, one of Western fiction’s greatest heroes. While later versions cleaned him up considerably, this is Hopalong as he first appeared."<<
Mulford wrote ALL the "Bar-20" stories while living in Maine.
Interestingly, although the population of Black "cowboys" in the old West approached 50% after the Civil War, when thousands of former slaves moved West, there isn't a single Black cowboy in ANY of the dozens of books and stories Mulford wrote about his hero, Hopalong...
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Dr. Woody'z Meemez

BLUE, NO MATTER WHO

PRIMARIES:
I am personally ambivalent about whom the Democrats nominate.
At this point, it appears to me that IF Lord Dampnut CAN be ousted, ANY Democrat--any semi-sentient being--ought to be able to do it--if it can be done, at all. His destructive antics, both at home and abroad, have encouraged many to believe his ouster is a foregone conclusion, but I am not sanguine about it. (YMMV)
Conversely, if, as I increasingly suspect, he canNOT be ousted--because the forces arrayed in his behalf (Ruuskis, Israelis, Chinese, NKorean, AND the GOPhux...etc.) will be GREATER and MORE intrusive (and probably LESS visible) than in 2016; meanwhile the GOPhux inna Senate have blocked funding for counter-measures FOR THE PAST THREE FUCKING YEARS--then it ALSO won't matter whom the Dems name.
(Yes, it's a tautology; that's two-party politics)
So, I hope it's either Biden or Bernie.
Why?
Because BOTH of them have just about exhausted their useful shelf-life.
This is the end, the last act, for either of them, howsoever it turns out.
Then, in the (unfortunately unlikely) event that either were elected, they might be prevailed upon to "do the right thing, and resign/retire in favor of their VP.
And if the Saffron Shitwhistle is returned, then no one who MIGHT take a prominent role subsequently is damaged by the defeat...if there happen to be future, national elections.