Life In The Age Of Obamacare

Regarding "Premiums offer hope to Houstonians" (Sunday Page A19), the very first example of likely coverage options for people without insurance and what they would pay under the Affordable Health Care Act explains in vivid detail why Obamacare will be an unmitigated disaster.  Laura Ante is a 60-year-old Houstonian homeowner with diabetes.  Private insurance is too expensive, but she doesn't qualify for subsidies because she owns her home. 

 

Even if she dumps her house, her total personal assets also have to fall to a poverty level before she will qualify for a subsidized plan.  Assuming she squanders most of her personal wealth until she is poor, her yearly contribution for a Bronze plan would then be $834; taxpayers would pay the other $7,357 per year.  The problem is that Ms. Ante would still need to pony up for 40% of all her health care costs under the Bronze plan.  As has been amply documented, the cost of medical care in America - from prescriptions to hospital visits to surgery - is more than twice as costly as in Canada or Europe, so in essence, Ms. Ante would be effectively paying for all of her own health care costs, with the $8,100 yearly policy being a gift to the insurance companies and the medical cartels.

 

It gets worse: As we've seen in the past year, Obamacare is the primary reason for the loss of millions of full time jobs, and the creation of the part-time low-wage job culture, so there's a good chance Ms. Ante's $18,500 job will either go away or that her wages will be reduced.  Either way, she will then officially be "poor", will qualify for the Earned Income Tax Credit, and will cease to be a taxpaying member of society. 

 

So in summary, Obamacare destroys home ownership, creates 30 million insurance policies that don't afford recipients any significant benefits, dumps the bulk of the cost for those policies on taxpayers, gives Ms. Ante no incentive at all to save for retirement, and forces her to allocate the bulk of her take-home pay to health care costs.  On top of that, the base of employees that Obamacare relies on to pay for Obamacare will be vastly eroded, as will the property tax base.  Finally, the cost of medical care and insurance policies will continue to skyrocket.

 

It's hard to imagine how the Democrats could have devised a more destructive policy.  

 

Pete Smith, Cypress

Pork Is Virtuous?

Regarding "Team Texas Fraying Amid Tensions" (Sunday Front Page), I've got a few problems with the premise of the article.  First off, it strikes me as curious that "corralling federal cash for the Lone Star State" should in any sense be portrayed as a good thing, much less the primary objective of the entire Texas congressional delegation.  Controlling the political process through earmarks, pork and patronage has proven to be a destructive and corrupting practice.  It has also led to the berserk growth of the Federal government and its out of control deficits.  Second, every dollar the Washington establishment so generously doles out to the States first had to be confiscated from the States.  This can only mean that if "Team Texas" is united and more effective at procuring federal dollars, they do it at the expense of other states, and other taxpayers.  

 

Slavering after federal dollars not only demeans our political process, it makes the fifty sovereign states mere vassals of the federal government, competing for crumbs off the Establishment table.  Ted Cruz gets that, and for the most part, so does John Cornyn.  Because of their leadership, Texas is one of a very few states that is challenging the long time status quo.  If you want to measure the true success of the Texas delegation, it will be in their ability to reform the federal government's spending habits.  It will also be measured by how much Texas money stays in Texas for Texans, instead of being siphoned off by the Fat Cats in Washington D.C.

 

Perhaps the next article can tell that side of the story.

 

Pete Smith

Cypress

Missed Opportunites, Houston Chronicle

Regarding "It's all about Ted" (Thursday Editorial), I'll leave it others to provide detail on the gross double standard the Chronicle employed in its treatment of Ted Cruz's filibuster vs. Wendy Davis.  You're no doubt catching it with both barrels, and deservedly so.

 

Instead, I'd like to focus on the missed opportunities for the Chronicle.  You were determined to marginalize Cruz: you called his effort "a colossal waste of time"; you compared him to all other politicians and found him lacking; you criticized his character and concluded that his actions were "all about Ted"; but is it possible that there was something about his effort that actually served the American people?

 

Of course there was.  As Cruz so eloquently explained time and again, his strategy of rallying Republican senators to deny Harry Reid a cloture vote would have a number of positive outcomes, primarily that it would force all Democrat senators to go on the record as supporting Obamacare.  This would have been poison for red state Democrats in particular.  And if they had been forced to organize a super-majority to boot the bill out of the Senate, there would have been a prolonged and very public spectacle of Democrats working to preserve in its entirety the ever-increasingly unpopular Affordable Care Act.

 

Not coincidentally, your editorial fed perfectly into the Democrat narrative that Republicans that oppose them are "arsonists", "extortionists" or worse.  Obama one-upped himself yesterday by calling Republican opponents to Obamacare "crazy".  So, there you have it: there is no end to the pejoratives that Obama, Reid and Pelosi will heap on Republicans, and apparently nothing that they can say that the Chronicle is not willing to rubber stamp.

 

And therein lies the many missed opportunities for the Chronicle.  For one thing, you could have told the story about why it is that Republican senators like Lindsay Graham, John McCain and Texas' own John Cornyn would oppose Cruz so as to allow Red State Dems to scurry out of the spotlight.  You could have done a story on the frantic - nay, panicky - overreaction of Democrats to Cruz's efforts.  You could have done a story on the particular malady that causes Establishment Republicans to silently suffer the calumny of their Democrat colleagues and come away thinking that the only proper response to such gross demagoguery is to: throw Ted Cruz under the bus.  You could have done a story comparing the efforts of Ted Cruz to use Senate rules that allow an individual to bring the legislative process to a halt, and compared that to Wendy Davis' very similar effort on the issue of the Texas abortion law.  You could have done an article on the flood of exemptions to Obamacare that Democrats have granted, mostly to themselves and their cronies.

 

You also could have compared the so-called narcissism of Ted Cruz to that of, say, John McCain, who for several months has been using each and every Obama controversy to all but declare himself the Shadow President.  Seriously, has nobody up there noticed that McCain has been running around calling press conferences and making proclamations on everything Obama does?  It's gotten so bad that I find myself - as a Tea Party Republican - actually sympathizing with President Obama and wishing McCain would shut his trap.

 

Instead, you threw it all away.  When you bought into to the Democrat talking points, you shut the door on dozens of articles that could have enlightened and entertained your readers.  Now, the "Ted Cruz is a self-centered arrogant legislative arsonist" spiel is all you have left, and there is just purely no way you can say that more than once without looking like, well, you're repeating yourself.

 

What really gets me is that you even admit that last year during his senatorial campaign, Ted Cruz sat down with you and told you exactly what he was going to do in opposing Obamacare.  How refreshing that must have been, to have a politician tell you he was going to do something, and then actually do it!  I would have thought you would have at least given him some points for consistency, but no.  And in so doing, you missed another prime story-telling opportunity: comparing Cruz - the most honest Senator in generations - to the shifty equivocators that overwhelm the joint.

 

Now that is an article I would have been willing to read.

 

Pete Smith

Cypress

CSN's Greed

Regarding "Here's new low for woeful Astros: zero television viewers" (Tuesday A1), the Astros' failure to draw any discernible viewers should be a reminder of the attempts by the Astros through the Comcast Sports Network earlier this year to force a $3.40 subscription fee on all of Houston's 2.28 million households for the privilege of watching the Astros, along with the Rockets and the Dynamo.  The Astros stood to be the major beneficiary of a scheme that would have sucked up to $93 Million from Houstonians' wallets every year, regardless of whether they ever watched a single game.

 

This is a refreshing blow against corporate welfare.  It should also a wake-up call to all sports franchises about the foolishness of alienating your fan base with such a greedy money grab.

 

Pete Smith, Cypress

Fun With German

I'm here to tell you that Google Translate, as good as it is at doing words and phrases, is an unmitigated hoot when it comes to anything more complicated.  A friend posted this article from Germany on what I assume was a lost election:

Schlecker women give men FDP existence Tips

Blessing in disguise for the FDP men standing on the street after the election defeat: you get advice from women who have undergone a similar fate excellent

Despair , bewilderment , helplessness:

Otherwise , it can not describe what the election defeat triggers to the employees of the FDP. No less than five FDP ministers now sitting on the road, they face the vocational education .

"I 'm 68 and I've ruined the liver for the company - who wants me for now ," complains a FDP employee who wishes to remain anonymous , in front of the Liberal Party headquarters . Others, it is likely to make worse : They are young , but already completely in the end.

Touching solidarity :

Unlike many German citizens , where the fate of the Liberals sincerely do not care , there are more than 11,000 of the Schlecker women who lost their jobs after the insolvency of the drugstore chain , a large solidarity with the FDP . With a number of former employees want to do the standing in front of the FDP men do nothing courage.

"We can only recommend Philipp Rösler , as soon as possible to find a connection using myself," ex - wife Heike W. Schlecker says warmly. Options give it a dime a dozen : Former Vice Chancellor could still open a separate mom and pop party , apply for or become depressed Hartz IV . "This has helped many of us in the crisis ," said the former Schlecker cashier , "Well, then, that the FDP has almost single-handedly prevented collecting societies for ourselves ."

Hope for the Liberals :

Perhaps there is still a glimmer of hope for the Liberals : It is said that the FDP wants to buy up , smash and spin off to Romania a foreign investor . "And if it is not , Dirk Niebel can start in my neighborhood shop in the photo department ," promises W. Heike , " I need a development aid . "

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The NFL Will Bail On The NCAA

Regarding "Texans' Foster admits taking money, slams 'bully' NCAA", (Saturday Page A1), as the title states, Arian Foster becomes but the latest of an ever-increasing number of pro football players to not only admit that they accepted money in college, but to rip the NCAA in the process.  What is interesting is that this trend puts the National Football League in a very uncomfortable position.  As opposed to professional baseball and basketball, only the NFL collaborates with the NCAA to restrict the rights of young athletes to move directly into the pro ranks, not accepting them into the draft until they complete three years of college or turn 21. 

 

With so many pro players of stature challenging this indentured servitude to the NCAA, sports fans will soon be demanding to know why the NFL is aiding and abetting the NCAA.  Watch for the NFL to fold on the issue of the draft, and quickly.  Once they do, the days when the NCAA can milk billions from student athletes without providing compensation will be over.

 

Pete Smith

Cypress

 

 

LTE: Check the record

Regarding "Delay's Legacy" (Saturday Editorial) and Jill Falkenberg's article from the day prior, the common theme of both pieces is that Republican Tom Delay was uniquely corrupt in the annals of Texas politics.  Reading either piece would lead one to believe that Delay not only invented Gerrymandering, partisanship and money laundering, but was the sole practitioner. 

There's two problems with this interpretation:

 

1) In 2002, just prior to the Delay-led Gerrymander, Democrats won 53% of Texas congressional seats despite getting only 40% of the popular vote.  This happened because Democrats had successfully Gerrymandered the daylights out of the electoral map for decades prior.  So blatant were Democrats' abuses that in 2006, the courts upheld the entirety of the 2003 Republican redistricting map. 

 

2) Neither piece mentions the shenanigans of Democrat prosecutor Ronnie Earle back in those days. The editorial makes much of the fact that a three judge panel unfairly overturned a jury's earlier guilty verdict, but I for one recall that Earle repeatedly convened grand juries until he got one that would indict Delay.  And let us not forget that Earle also led the effort to bring former Senator Kaye Bailey Hutchison up on bogus corruption charges just prior to focusing his attention on Delay.

 

I've never been a fan of Tom Delay.  He abused the Earmark process to wield political power, but in so doing he was simply taking a page out of a manual written by the Democrats. That said, a fair telling of his story would include some history on Democrat Gerrymandering prior to Delay, along with the efforts of Democrat partisans like Earle to use the criminal justice system to harass their opponents.  Hate him if you will, but Delay's efforts resulted in election results that are far more fair than those when Democrats ruled Texas, and he should not have had to spend a decade and millions of dollars to defend himself against a partisan onslaught.

Pete Smith, Cypress
-------------------------------------------------
Check the record
Regarding "DeLay's Legacy" (Page B6, Saturday) and Lisa Falkenberg's column, "'DeLay-ism' is just another word for sleazy" (Page B1, Friday), the common theme of both pieces is that Republican Tom DeLay was uniquely corrupt in the annals of Texas politics.

Reading either piece would lead one to believe that DeLay not only invented gerrymandering, partisanship and money laundering but was the sole practitioner. There are two problems with this interpretation:

No. 1: In 2002, just prior to the DeLay-led gerrymander, Democrats won 53 percent of Texas congressional seats despite getting only 40 percent of the popular vote.

This happened because Democrats had successfully gerrymandered the daylights out of the electoral map for decades prior. So blatant were Democrats' abuses that in 2006, the courts eventually upheld the 2003 Republican redistricting map.

No. 2: Neither piece mentions the shenanigans of Democrat prosecutor Ronnie Earle back in those days. The editorial makes much of the fact that a three-judge panel unfairly overturned a jury's earlier guilty verdict, but I for one recall that Earle repeatedly convened grand juries until he got one that would indict DeLay. 

And let us not forget that Earle also led the effort to bring former Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison up on corruption charges just prior to focusing his attention on DeLay.

I've never been a fan of Tom Delay. He abused the earmark process to wield political power, but in so doing he was simply taking a page out of a manual written by the Democrats. That said, a fair telling of his story would include some history on Democratic gerrymandering prior to DeLay, along with the efforts of Democrat partisans like Earle to use the criminal justice system to harass their opponents. Hate him if you will, but Delay's efforts resulted in election results that are far more fair than those when Democrats ruled Texas, and he should not have had to spend a decade and millions of dollars to defend himself against a partisan onslaught.

Pete Smith, Houston

http://www.chron.com/opinion/letters/article/Wednesday-letters-Evaluating-the-DeLay-decision-4840336.php

White Punks On Dope

So, 300 animals trash a man's house, piss on the carpet and Tweet the whole sorry affair to the world, and their parents are mad at: the homeowner. Unlucky for them, he's a former NFL lineman. I say: prosecute them all. That way, with even a misdemeanor conviction on their record, they won't get into the college of their choice, and I won't have to hear these little piss-ants complaining five years from now about how burdened they are with their student loans.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



So, you go Brian Holloway. America has your back:

 

http://nypost.com/2013/09/20/parents-want-to-sue-former-nfler-for-outing-their-hard-partying-brats/

 

 

Yes, But Did He Use The Elmo Voice?

Regarding "NY man who dressed as Elmo admits Girl Scouts scam" (Thursday Nation), you had me at "Elmo". This is one of the funniest pieces I've ever read in the Chronicle, and I treasure every word of it. First is the revelation that homeless person Dan Sandler dressed up as Elmo for his very public anti-Semitic rant. Next was the revelation that if the Girl Scouts didn't give him $2 Million, he would say bad things about them.

From there it only gets better. The story reveals that he sent pictures and e-mails to the Girls Scouts as part of his master plan. Who knew homeless people had access to such an abundance of high tech resources?

Best of all, though, was the reaction of New York authorities who treated his actions as a crime. Oh to be a fly on the wall when they plea bargained that one with a man who is, to put it charitably, eccentric: "We was gonna let you walk for the Girl Scout caper, Sandler, until we found out about the Elmo thing." If the odd behavior of homeless people constitutes criminality, Big Apple prosecutors will have a full dance card for the foreseeable future.

As a concerned citizen, I demand that New York police release the contents of his e-mails and all interrogations. I don't think sensible folks are near done mining this one for laughs.

Pete Smith, Cypress

Regarding "NCAA won't budge on paying college athletes" (Monday Sports), NCAA President Mark Emmert doesn't think it's a good idea to convert student-athletes into paid employees - "literally into professionals." He is, however, happy with HIS million dollar per year package and similar compensation for his cronies. What is ironic is that Emmert has been forced by the Manziel controversy to address the other aspect of the NCAA's unconscionable exploitation of student athletes for profit: their rules that prevent college football players from entering the NFL draft until after their third year of indentured servitude to the NCAA, or upon turning 21 years of age.

Emmert is now the Little Dutch Boy trying to preserve the dike, and there's way more holes than he can plug with his ten fingers.  Pick your metaphor: The Cow's Out Of The Barn, The Cat's Out Of The Bag, The Genie's Out Of The Bottle; they all mean the same thing: college athletes will be paid, or Mark Emmert will preside over the destruction of NCAA college sports programs.

Pete Smith, Cypress

UseFul Idiots, Part 7

The Hijab is but one of many tools Islamists use to repress women.  This federal judge is another:

"Abercrombie & Fitch loses ruling over Muslim garb"

Yet Another Republican Toady

"According to this, Jeb Bush will honor Hillary Clinton with the Liberty Medal from the National Constitution Center tonight. Because what better day than the eve of the anniversary of the Benghazi attack to honor the woman who said":

There is nothing more precious than Establishment Types giving each other awards.  Not to worry, Democrats will award Jeb a Legion Of Merit With Two Chevrons at some banquet or other in the not-too-distant future, and he will wear it proudly in the presence of his many Democrat friends.

For those of us who have looked askew at the Bush family ever since George HW devoted his presidency to dismantling all the good Ronald Reagan had done, this is no surprise. Jeb Bush has been a tool of the Establishment his entire career, and like his Old Man, he has devoted himself to undermining Conservatism.

LTE: Real Art

Regarding Patrick Daugherty, finally, an artist I can relate to. No crucifixes in jars of urine; no images of the Virgin Mary made of elephant dung; no football field sized bed-sheets. In other words, no precious avant garde dreck that would never see the light of day without a massive public subsidy.


Patrick Dougherty, known for his bent-twig installations, will create a site-specific work for Art in the Park in January. This is "Lean on Me," made in 2012 at College of St. Benedict & St. John University in Minnesota.

In the classical tradition of Normal Rockwell, this guy takes the commonplace and makes art. And as a bonus he's coming to Houston and we get to see it unfold over the course of several days. Where do I sign up?

Pete Smith, Cypress

9-12-13: http://www.chron.com/opinion//opinion/letters/article/Thursday-letters-Parents-Hitler-s-guy-true-art-4806815.php

Milking The Taxpayer Yet Again

Regarding "Pre-K Tax Won't Make Ballot" (Saturday Front Page), the article describes how the 14th Court of Appeals rejected the HCSRC (Harris County School Readiness Corp.) lawsuit to force County Judge Ed Emmett to put the tax before voters this fall.

 

The article quotes Judge Emmett as objecting to the strange manner in which HCSRC attempted to force this initiative onto the voter ballot, and documents that this private corporation inflated the petition with tens of thousands of unverifiable signatures.  What is even stranger, though, is that neither Judge Emmett nor the numerous prior articles about this case ever drew attention to the impropriety of their actions, much less mentioned that the major beneficiary of this very vague proposal would have been: HCSRC.

 

Perhaps Judge Emmett was obliged to restrain his comments given his position as the county official challenging whether the initiative would be allowed on the ballot.  I don't think our news organizations - Chronicle included - were required to be so discrete.  Voters were entitled to know that the HRSRC was promoting a $20 million yearly tax that was going to line its pockets before they decided to sign the petition.

 

Here's hoping that if HRSRC tries again, that the Chronicle will shine a big old spotlight on them, and ask the tough questions.

 

Pete Smith, Cypress

Sports Talking Heads Throw A Tantrum

Regarding "Tebow, Manziel can't run away from blitz of criticism" (Tuesday Sports C1), Steve Harvey documents at length the quotes by a raft of sports commentators intent on psychoanalyzing Johnny Manziel to death, blowing his supposed misdeeds out of proportion and then pontificating about his character flaws.  What followed was a veritable orgy of adjectives to describe Manziel, including "spoiled brat", "immature",  "coddled", "foolish", and my personal favorite: "narcissistic".  This last was a hoot, coming as it does from a Sports Talking Head. 

 

This largely talent-free pack is free to cover what they will, but I find it strange that so few of them had time to comment on Manziel doing what he's not paid to do: play football like nobody else.  Johnny Football passed for three TDs on five possessions in just over one quarter of play in the second half.  Amazing.

 

More importantly, the vast majority of these commentators totally ignored the real story of the day: the two-game suspension of four A&M Defensive starters for what was vaguely referred to as a "violation of team rules".  Note to Mike Sumlin: relax, you're off the hook; but then, you knew that didn't you? 

 

Bottom line, the Talking Heads seem to be so obsessed with milking the "Bad Boy" storyline for ratings, that they're willing to ignore everything else.  Harvey himself might have given us a clue as to why in an on-line article titled "A&M still restricting media’s access to Manziel".  Seems a bunch of needy reporters might be down on Johnny M because he either won't talk to them, isn't allowed to, or some combination of the two.  Harvey himself admits as much when he writes "I don’t believe he, the university or anyone else is doing Manziel a service" by subjecting reporters to "the silent treatment".

 

Note the intriguing qualification there: "he, the university or anyone else".  Clearly, that "anyone else" could only be coach Mike Sumlin, but Harvey, fearful of pushing Sumlin's buttons too much, can't bring himself to mention him by name.  He does, however, feel perfectly comfortable not just mentioning Johnny Manziel by name, but also diving to the very bottom of the Pundit barrel to mine negative comments about the irrepressible Johnny Football.  How low did he go?  He actually included comments from Matt Millen, arguably the most deservedly reviled commentator in all of football. 

 

Millen's claim to infamy, as many of you know, was his stint as the CEO/general manager of the Detroit Lions in 2001, during which time he buried the franchise in a hole that it has taken a decade to dig out of.  He accomplished this by refusing to believe that there was any position worth drafting for other than wide receiver.  I'm not kidding about this: you can look it up. 

 

My favorite part of the article was where "former Dallas Cowboys scouting legend Gil Brandt" asked, rhetorically, "if Tom Brady would ever act that way."  You remember Tom Brady, that paragon of virtue; the guy who abandoned his pregnant girlfriend so as to take up with Giselle Bundchen?  So, Gil, let me see if I've got this straight: Poking the NCAA Mafia in the eye is Bad; very Bad.  Abandoning your pregnant girlfriend is not only Not Bad, but makes you a role model.

 

Yes, Heaven forbid that somebody in the Media is not given exactly what they want, when they want it.  They may not crap their pants like a bunch of babies anymore, but that's not going to stop them from crapping all over somebody else.

Pete Smith
Cypress, TX

RIP, Fraidy

We took our twenty-one year old cat Fraidy to the vet last Wednesday morning and had her put to sleep.  It was time.  She had been eating only sporadically the previous couple weeks, and barely at all the prior 3-4 days.  When she stopped drinking water and using the litter box, we knew this might be the end, since our vet had educated us on the warning signs for a cat of her advanced years.  After some alone time with Fraidy in the examining room, the vet came in and explained the process.  He was kind, professional, and finished by saying "She is the oldest patient I've got".  This was a little ironic, since he was standing there with the syringe in his hand, but he had told us that before, and in his voice was just a little tinge of wonder.  It was a comfort and a source of more than a little pride that our vet could be amazed at her longevity, and he liked Fraidy too. 

We got Fraidy from my sister in 1993 when she was nine months old, shipped from Detroit, freshly spayed, drugged and stuck in a carrier for the 2.5 hour trip in the belly of a 737.  So it was a rough start for a kitten: She went from Detroit to Houston, from an indoor cat to an outdoor cat, and from the center of attention to second fiddle, what with our cat Buddy - also from Detroit and ten years old - having seniority.  The start of the relationship was not promising.  What she perceived as her ill treatment precipitated a memorable dash for freedom when I came home from work one day about a week after we got her.  I opened the garage door and she was off like a shot straight between my legs, over to the Murski's house and under their car.  I ran over and tried to coax her out.  She responded by running back across the grass and under my car.

 

This continued for about a half hour, with an ever-larger group of relatives, friends and neighborhood kids either joining the pursuit or watching in amusement.  I remembered thinking at the time that this was not the best thought-out plan, even for a pet.  It reminded me that 17 years earlier, my dog Babe ran away literally the day after I got her, flea-bitten, emaciated and with only one functioning eye, but she at least had a plan.  Phase One: jump the fence while I was in the back yard, get clean away, turn around to make sure I see her before she rounds the next block and disappears.  Phase II: Be sitting happily in the back yard waiting when I get home from work, tail thumping the ground in expectation of praise. 

 

A more sensitive person would look at these two events and detect a pattern: why were my foundling adopted pets treating me this way?  Neither one had any particular qualities that made them animals you could love, at least not at first, so I'm figuring they're being just a little uppity.  Anyway, the pursuit continued, Fraidy bouncing back and forth between cars, and easily avoiding the hands that reached out to her, me ruining my suit pants as I lean under each car in turn, trying to coax her out.  On the seventh try, she not only crawled under our neighbor's daughter's car, but climbed up into the engine compartment.  Theresa asked me what she should do.  I replied "start the engine".  She laughed, certain I was kidding.  Me, I wasn't so sure.

 

We did not start the car.  Instead, we decided to be a little more scientific about the whole thing, and got a bed sheet to throw over her like a fishing net as we would flush her out from under one of the cars.  This did not work at all, but added a whole other element to the chase that the neighbors could enjoy.  Finally the assembled throng started working in concert, and blocking her path of escape.  After some minutes of this, and managing to block her from getting under a car, she panicked and ran up onto our porch.  Sharon approached her; Fraidy was shaking and clearly exhausted, but looked directly up at Sharon and mewed.  I remembered thinking at the time how unusual it was for a cat to make sustained eye contact, but that turned out to be one of her more endearing qualities.  She let Sharon pick her up and take her into the house.  She was named that day.

 

After that we all settled into a routine.  In quick order, Fraidy adjusted to the new home, weather, living arrangements and the pecking order.  Buddy and her became fast friends, him tolerating the impetuous Newbie, but for all of that, she was not your typical kitten.  She did not play with string, or toys; she was very calm, did not destroy furniture, and was not infinitely needy as most cats are, her older brother also being an exception in that department and no doubt having a good influence on her.

 

Mostly, she was content to be wherever the humans were, particularly Sharon.  That was another quality she shared with Buddy, who was "my" cat.  If we were outside doing lawn work, Fraidy was content to be there as well, generally either leaning against you or directly in front of you, and most often exactly where you did not want her to be.  Not a problem: gardening, weeding and such soon became a ritual that involved doing a little work, petting Fraidy, moving Fraidy, continue working, then repeat.

 

Buddy took sick a few years later, and that was the first time I was confronted with taking a beloved pet in to be put to sleep.  He was 14, an unusually long life for a street cat of his size and breed.  I kind of used that as my expectation of how long Fraidy would be with us, but that would not be the first time she surprised us.  In 2000, she really came into her own, as we had moved out to the suburbs into a house we built, and where we currently live.  The area has a bunch of open land around us, and the neighborhood was comprised of large wooded lots with tons of critters and predatory birds.  Fraidy flourished, got adventurous, and would be gone for hours at a time, but would always pop back home every few hours.  On a half acre lot, there was also much more yard work to be done, and her social schedule got that much busier, as there were that many more hours to get in the way, or lounge happily nearby as we weeded, trimmed, cut and hauled, Fraidy patiently moving from place to place as the work progressed.  Suffice to say, we loved socializing outdoors as well, and Fraidy was there, always, and underfoot.

 

Around 2005, another cat - a large Tom - started hanging around, and after several months unofficially became ours.  I named him Idjit, because he was, but Sharon, thinking this unkind, changed it to Idjie.  I didn't figure it would matter to the cat, who was dumb even for a cat, but I did take consolation that in our vet's records, his name was recorded as Idjit.  This cat truly did not add anything to the household, but he was low maintenance, showing up once or twice a day max.  After a few years, he started getting bossy, and picking on the much smaller Fraidy.  She would give it right back to him though, and with her seniority, managed to keep him in line.  Still, the day came a few years ago that she was now a senior citizen, and he was taking advantage of it.  Suffice to say that Idjit got more than a few doses from the water bottle, as well as a number of whacks from a flyswatter we kept in the garage specifically for him.   

 

The situation was manageable for a while, but Idj was cruising for a trip to the animal shelter when he simply stopped coming around.  We found out later that he had decided to take up residence at a neighbor's house a few blocks over.  Either way, it worked out for all of us.  Having to deal with Idj did toughen Fraidy up though, and she continued to range the neighborhood, including lurking in the drainage pipe on the corner of our lot.  We never did figure out what her fascination was with the pipe, except that half the time if we would call her, she would come popping up out of it.

 

Watching her get comfortable in her old age was a trip.  She was probably 15 before she started limiting the amount of ranging she would do in the neighborhood.  The last six years of her life or so, she simply left later, came back earlier, and was within eyeshot more often than not.  This past year, she would venture out of the garage or screened-in porch, but rarely down the driveway or even the front yard.  Still, every once in a while she would get adventurous and wander the front porch, then down towards the street.  This caused a little anxiety because we weren't entirely sure how well she could see, but she always turned back and returned to the comfort of her pallet before too long.  She was content to wait for us to show up and scratch her, which between Sharon and me happened a dozen times per day. 

 

Her health was good.  Up until the last week - how to put this - she peed and pooped like a racehorse.  Seriously, her daily output was, like, half her body weight.  And as everybody knows, when you're old, you don't demand much more from life than a good appetite, a little socializing and regularity.  Except for an occasional illness, Fraidy had all those things for 21 years. 

 

I mentioned she was really good at making eye contact, and you could never mistake it.  It's not unlike when you make eye contact with another person: you can sense from the look in their eyes that they're looking at you; same with Fraidy.  The effect was all the more arresting because - as Sharon pointed out - the markings around her eyes made it look like she was wearing eyeliner.  In her youth, the eye contact thing was sporadic.  If dinner was late, if she wanted to be scratched or if there was thunder and lightning, she would tilt her head back and look right up at you, but that was about it.  In her senior years, though, as the hearing and eyesight started to go, the eye contact became more prolonged and insistent.  No doubt some of this was her simply focusing until she was certain you were looking back, but her manner of doing it was endearing in the extreme: She would walk up to you, tilt her head back and look up at you.  If you didn't respond, after a few seconds, she would mew at you.  If you didn't respond then, she would sit down, get comfortable, and do it again.  And always - always - you were looking into her gorgeous eyes. 

"Guilting", we called it, and it worked every time, with one of us pulling out the brush and giving her a good going over.  This was a constant source of amusement for Sharon, by the way, since Fraidy most often worked this angle on me.

 

I mentioned we got her a litter box a couple years ago.  Pushing through the cat door and going outside was getting beyond her, and she started peeing in her cat bed.  What made this funny is that when we would go out to the garage, she would immediately walk over to the soiled basket, look up and start squawking, as if this unacceptable turn of events was our fault.  So, a litter basket it was.  As time progressed she went outside less and less.  We left the garage door open as much as possible, but even with this she started getting disoriented in the semi-dark garage, so four months ago we moved her out to the screened-in sun porch off the kitchen.  She loved it.  Just enough sunlight, the smells of nature, and within eyeshot of the adults inside through the patio doors.  The funny thing is that the sun porch until that point was rarely used.  Once we moved her out there, it became the social hub of our home. 

 

About a year ago, we had a real scare with Fraidy.  She exhibited all the same symptoms from last week, and being twenty years old, we assumed the end might be near.  We took her to the vet expecting the worst; instead, it turned out she had an abscess on her leg, easily treated by antibiotics.  She came back like a champ, but before she started feeling better, she would look up at you with those big, beautiful, soulful eyes and mew at you, confident that she was going to be brushed, petted or just held, and asking for no more than that.  She didn't have a problem that couldn't be solved with just a little attention.  It makes you realize that, however old they get, pets are children their entire lives.  Is that why it's so heart-rending when they die? 

 

The last four months were good ones for her and us.  To watch her circle repeatedly on her pallet - arthritic hips reducing the ritual to an agonizing slowness - was an edge-of-the-seat experience, Sharon counting out the turns.  Fraidy would eventually complete the circuit and settle down, finishing with a deep sigh as her old bones got comfortable.  The practice of brushing her the last couple months changed as well.  For the first 19 years, we could sit down and Fraidy would immediately come over to be brushed.  Then her sight and hearing started going, and we had to call out to her and wave the brush for her to see.  Then her sight and hearing got a little worse, and we had to tap it on the ground to get her attention.  Then it just got tough for her to get up once she'd gotten comfortable, so we would frequently walk over to her pallet and brush her right there.

 

And always, she would talk to you, look up, and make eye contact.

 

By last Monday, it was clear she was in distress.  She cried a lot, but would settle down with a little petting.  By Tuesday, she was progressively weaker, and the vet confirmed that she was dying.  We took her in Wednesday afternoon and had a few minutes with her one last time.  She was content with us gently petting her, but in order to look her in the eyes, we had to stoop down to the counter, or pick her head up.  She didn't seem to mind, and I think she took as much comfort in it as we did.  Doc came in, gave her the shot, and Fraidy went quickly, melting comfortably onto the pallet one last time, our small consolation being that she was neither confused, fearful or in pain, and trusting because her parents hands were on her. 

What a blessing that little girl was to both Sharon and me, and for better than twenty years.  She was our much loved Fraidy, and like most pets, made the world a better place because she was in it.

So Much For Justice

Regarding "With Hasan case, reason prevailed over power", author Geoffrey Corn offers an interesting take on the decision of the officer who initially shot Fort Hood mass murderer Major Nidal Hasan to hold his fire once he determined Hasan was disabled.  Corn holds up this incident as a tribute to America's well developed sense of right and wrong.  While there's no doubt that was true in this case, I wonder where this highly developed sense of morality was when our military courts prosecuted the case of mass murderer Sergeant Robert Bales?  Bales murdered over a dozen Afghani civilians while on duty in Kandahar province last year.

 

There's little doubt that Bales' actions were more heinous than Hasan's.  Bales murdered defenseless civilians - including nine children - in their beds.  He took a break in between killings, went back to camp, reloaded and came back for more.  Then he used a kerosene lamp to set the bodies of his victims on fire.

 

That begs the question: Why was Bales allowed to plead guilty and avoid the death penalty?  Surely they had enough evidence to convict without allowing him to cop a plea.  Coincidentally, back in March Judge Tara Osborn specifically denied Hasan the same opportunity, saying she "could not accept a guilty plea when the possible sentence is death." 

 

It's ironic that, while both men deserve to be executed, it is unlikely either will be.  That will be small comfort to the families of Bales' many victims, and will do little to persuade them that American justice treats foreign victims as fairly as it does Americans.

 

Pete Smith

Cypress, TX