Barbaro - what's going on here?

What is going on here - why this outpouring of love for this horse?

The horse is a majestic animal - slaughtered for meat in the U.S. but not eaten here - (unless you go to Sizzler's). This love affair has deep roots in our DNA. Stealing a mans horse was a federal crime (I believe) and after Stonewall Jackson died his horse toured repeatably with carnivals from town to town. It lived to some outlandish old age and was very well taken care of a hero in it's own right. Look at what the loss of the family pet does to a household now magnify that nationwide even world wide.

Adults treat each other like crap, but the worst of us love our pets. In the absence of blind ambition for power, money and fame we are left with a simpler kind of humanity one personified in our animal friends that doesn't hate based on color, creed or culture.

We have over complicated our lives with the trappings of consumerism and the packaging and the marketing and the fashion that goes along with it. A horse doesn't care about what car you drive or your address or the color of your cell phone, what music you listen to or how you walk, talk or look. But they do have a sense of humor and they love to run. It's the basic instincts of our better nature to be drawn in especially by such a heroic horse. Barbaro had Triple Crown written all over him. We love a winner but more than that we love a battler and Barbaro and those who worked feverishly to take care of him battled for us.

Wrap all of that up together and it's easy to see why we feel (at times) more towards our pets than each other in general. Unfortunately for humans we are too easily led astray by the fabricated importance of consumerism and fashion and power and control as opposed to our kindred animal spirits who just love to be.

It's hard to articulate in words but has a lot to do with unconditional love. Maybe one day we will try it on each other (globally) until then we express our love and humanity to those we know won't use it against us.

An Inconvenient Truth

I finally saw Al Gore's movie An Inconvenient Truth. Now look a lot of people said Al was just doing this to get his name back out there to run for President. He had disingenuous motives. Me thinks his critics (guys who make money from selling large quantities of oil) are the ones with disingenuous motives. Mr. Gore better hurry up and announce he's running for President because he is way behind the fund raising curve for 2008. Typically, that immediate criticism was spin to dissuade potential viewers. Why?

The status quo will only adapt and change when they have no other choice. Then we had two (count em) two and only two - astroturf groups come out and put down the movie. Well what do you expect from Exxon Mobil? They are not going to say "oh yes Al is right, and by the way have you heard about the electric car?" They are going to protect their business tooth and nail.

To the extent the public is easily manipulated is an indictment on all of us. It's interesting that the oil men from Texas who run the government these days - refused - refused - I mean flat out refused to see the film. Now that's just dumb. There is nothing like a closed mind to insure that one never learns anything or learns from their past mistakes. If you haven't seen this documentary yet do yourself a favor. Forget Al Gore and the smearing he received and still receives from his political rivals. Forget the fearful status quo who are too lazy to figure out how to profit from the upcoming inevitable change we must all go through. Focus in on the information provided.

You don't have to buy into the documentary lock stock and barrel. You never should with anything you see, hear, or read. That is part of the reason the public is so easily manipulated. Walter Cronkite and integrity in our news outlets vanished decades ago. But, do leave yourself open to the possibility that you are receiving information that might be legitimate. There are very strong moneyed interest who have a distinct motive in suppressing this information. Their motive is their profit margin not our collective well being. Keep an open mind be a free thinker (think for yourself) and you might just learn something or look at something a little differently, change and even grow as a human being. Heck you might even do something about it and through action reach a certain fulfillment in your life you might not have at this moment. The possibilities are endless if one is open to them.

Bottom line: this is an awfully small planet in an enormous universe. This vehicle called Earth is not infinite in it's resources and is very finite if off kilter or out of balance. After all we are spinning like a top - the slightest tweak could put an end to that.

...and now for a bit of fun...

Dear Troubled User:
This is a very common problem that men complain about.

Many people upgrade from Girlfriend 7.0 to Wife 1.0, thinking that it is just a Utilities and Entertainment program. Wife 1.0 is an OPERATING SYSTEM and is designed by its Creator to run EVERYTHING !!! It is also impossible to delete Wife 1.0 and to return to Girlfriend 7.0 . It is impossible to uninstall, or purge the program files from the system once installed.

You cannot go back to Girlfriend 7.0 because Wife 1.0 is designed to not allow this. Look in your Wife 1.0 manual under Warnings-Alimony/Child Support . I recommend that you keep Wife 1.0 and work on improving the situation. I suggest installing the background application "Yes Dear" to alleviate software augmentation.

The best course of action is to enter the command C:\APOLOGIZE! because ultimately you will have to give the APOLOGIZE command before the system will return to normal anyway.

Wife 1.0 is a great program, but it tends to be very high maintenance Wife 1.0 comes with several support programs, such as Clean and Sweep 3.0 , Cook It 1.5 and Do Bills 4.2

However, be very careful how you use these programs. Improper use will cause the system to launch the program Nag Nag 9.5 . Once this happens, the only way to improve the performance of Wife 1.0 is to purchase additional software. I recommend Flowers 2.1 and< /SPAN> Diamonds 5.0 !

WARNING!!! DO NOT, under any circumstances, install Secretary With Short Skirt 3.3 This application is not supported by Wife 1.0 and will cause irreversible damage to the operating system!

Best of luck,

Tech Support
(thanks to Chris L - the big guy for passing this on)