“Return To Gilligan’s Island”?, By Brian James Rational Poet on FB/META and @Brianrrs37 on Twitter)

A month ago
Wouldn’t you know
Kelly got ringworm
And the dish to go

It wasn’t just
A three or four hour tour
The cone of shame
To her a chore

Stuck in that island
It frustrated her so
Scratching at it
The dish wouldn’t go

The days went by
She seemed resigned
“I guess I’ll have to wear it”
Till the end of time

Ringworm defeated
Finally, she shed the satellite
No clumsy Victrola
To be such a blight

No more worry
Or so she thought
“I finally have gotten
This damned thing off”

Two days ago
She got her spay
“Return to Gilligan’s Island”?
“NO WAY! NO WAY!”
(end)

A little over a month ago she got ringworm and licked a bald spot on her back. The vet gave Kelly antibiotics and a cone of shame. It took a while for her to get rid of it. The fur grew back and I took the cone off. But she only had the cone off for about a week and a half before her spay. Now she has the cone on again for another 10 days.

I will say this, she has been cheerful in both cases, just slightly irritated.

Missing, By Brian37 (AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB/META and @Brianrrs37 on Twitter)

No food, no water
After midnight prior
Kelly’s spay
Was upon the hour

This morning was off
Anneplath could tell
Kelly still in the crate
As Anneplath ate

But all he did
Was to sniff the food
Kelly not eating
To him not good

“Where is my sister?”
He must have been thinking
She wasn’t eating
She wasn’t drinking

Their morning ritual
At dawn’s breaking
Was disrupted
Brian’s mistaken

Pacing around
Looking confused
Where was his sister?
What could he do?
(end)

Anneplath was so sweet this morning. I went to feed him but kept his sister Kelly in the crate because she had an appointment to be spayed. Anneplath initially nibbled, but looked around and saw Kelly wasn’t eating too, so he paced around looking confused. I tried to coax him back to his bowl, but he simply wouldn’t go back to it.

But now that I have dropped Kelly off at the vet, and back home now. Anneplath has been more affectionate than usual.

Civics lesson about what the founders said about religion. They had varying beliefs for sure. Many of them leaned more towards deism and Unitarianism. But the one thing they all agreed on was that they did not want a state established church. And while the Declaration of Independence references “their creator”, they did not mean that as a collective assumption that everyone had to believe in the same God. They meant that to be personal as in the mind of the individual, and not of public law.

There are 4,543 words in The United States Constitution and none of them are “Christian, Jesus, or Bible”. The First Amendment does not ban religion from existing, but it is clear that there was not to be any state sanction hierarchy putting one religion over another. Thus the “establishment clause”. Putting it bluntly, it does not say, “This is only a nation of Christians as long as you are some sort of Christian”. If the founders intended on the law being based on the Christian bible, I think they were smart enough to make that clear. But they left that out, because they did not want a theocracy.

This is backed up in the Constitution’s oath of office with the words “no religious test”. That did not mean a religious person couldn’t hold office, it merely meant it could not be a litmus test to hold office. It is why today, we have Jews and Muslims and have had atheists hold offices in Congress.

This concept of religious neutrality is backed up by the Barbary Treaty and article 11, “As the government of The United States Of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.”

The founders were all very skeptical of religion sticking it’s tentacles into lawmaking. Conservatives often confuse ceremonial deism for lawmaking. Ceremonies do not constitute laws and are never mandatory when it comes to religion.

Jefferson and Paine one could argue were the most vocally critical of mixing government and religion, and the abuse of religious institutions. Jefferson was most certainly open to skepticism.

“Question with boldness even the existence of a God, for if there be one, surely he would pay more homage to reason than to that of blindfolded fear,” Thomas Jefferson.

Jefferson was not an atheist, but believed that Jesus was just a man and even wrote his “Jefferson’s bible” stripping it of the fantastic magic claims. This is what he wrote to Adams in a letter written on April 11, 1823, ” “And the day will come, when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as His Father, in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter.”

I vehemently would argue, that with the above, and Jefferson’s Virginia Religious Freedom Act, which acted as the prototype for Maddison’s First Amendment, and combined with his letter to the Danbury Baptists it is clear what the intent of the First Amendment meant in the “establishment clause”.

Thomas Jefferson in his letter to the Baptists, “I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.”

If the founders, especially Jefferson, intended on favoritism to the Christian God and Jesus sanctioned by government, why say all that?

Thomas Paine also believed that his beliefs were his own, and that organized religion was a bane on society, My own mind is my own church. ………..All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian, or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.”

Also Thomas Paine, “Persecution is not an original feature in any religion; but it is always the strongly marked feature of all religions established by law.” Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason.

These are just a few of the countless examples of what the founders had to say on religion and mixing it with lawmaking. It must be noted that they fought to free themselves from a King who had forced his religion on the Colonies.

If those who may read this wish to do things like force prayer back in public schools, or insist on gang tagging every classroom with the Ten Commandments, please look at the modern middle east and Afghanistan today. Countries like Saudi Arabia, Iran and the Taliban controlling Afghanistan are not places where a Christian or Jew or an atheist could be publicly open without repercussions or threat of death.

And when it comes to women’s rights, Susan B. Anthony had this to say about the beliefs of others, “I distrust those who know so well what God wants them to do because I always notice it coincides with their own desires.”

There is a dangerous fear coming from the religious right and those conservatives in Congress are playing on the social anxiety of their base and doing exactly what the founders warned not to do. We cannot expect to survive as a democratic republic if we allow religion to ramrod sectarian views into lawmaking. If religion succeeds in destroying Jefferson’s wall, we will be no better than the theocracies we point to and rightfully condemn.

The Last Angel, By Brian37 (By Brian James Rational Poet on FB/META and @Brianrrs37 on Twitter)

You were on probation
Julie swept the nation
It was the last season

You spent some time
Dispatching taxis,
Scuba diving with Sonny

Street smart smile
Stunt woman honey
Dating on the line

You caught the killer
On time, chorus
Dances so fine

Then you went on to
The disco decade show
Pinciotti’s mom we know

It maybe blasphemy
To say, Kelly
Was my second place

Farrah had her day
But you Tanya
You’ll always be my fav.
(end)

Tanya Roberts played Julie in the very last season of Charlies Angels. Kelly is my favorite for different reasons, so it is almost a tie. But Julie was my favorite for her streetwise tough exterior. Tanya went on to play Midge Pinciotti in That 70s Show.

Some of the lines are references to episode plots in that last season. For fans of Cher, you may not or may know that Sonny actually guest stared in one of the episodes of the last season.

I am writing this now because I didn’t know, or forgot, that Tanya died in 2021. I was watching a dvd episode of that last season, and while doing so looked up her Twitter page and read that she had died. It made me cry.

My Left Foot, By Brian37 (AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB/META and @Brianrrs37 on Twitter)

Why do you park there
What is it,
What is so fascinating
The smell of my sock?

My foot my foot
Is as hard as a rock.
I hold no understanding
Stock

You curl up
And close your eyes
Slumber land
And dreams of twine

You have to know
My foot is mine
You paralyze me
I’m in a bind

I cannot move
It’s bathroom time
I’ll break your sleep
And annoy your mind

Kelly Kelly
Why not sleep on my belly?
My foot you tickle
It’s goofy and silly

Kelly Kelly
You own me
My foot your pillow
Off to dream.
(end)

Kelly loves sleeping on my foot. Don’t ask me why.

Victrola, By Brian37 (AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB/META and @Brianrrs37 on Twitter)

Ring, Ring
Kelly got a worm
Now she has
A satellite dish
It constantly
Makes her squirm
Scratch, scratch
Trying to get to
The bald patch
On her furry back
She pitters around
Pouting confused
It won’t cut her
Any slack
Nipper’s nose
I suppose
In Victrola’s cone
Until Kelly heals
She doesn’t want to be
Ever left alone.
(end)

Kelly got ringworm so she is wearing the cone of shame until it heals.

Inherent, By Brian37 (AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB/META and @Brianrrs37 on Twitter)

Once on video
I saw a cat
Save a toddler
From a dog

In another video
I saw an elephant
Pull her calf
Out of a bog

This idea
That we specifically
Are the only species
Capable of morality

Is a fallacy.
Acts of empathy
Compassion
Come naturally

To many,
In our animal kingdom.
It isn’t handed down
From a guy in the clouds

It is DNA that allows
The adaptation
Of socialization
Making stronger bonds.

Wrong Place, By Brian37 (AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB and @Brianrrs37 on Twitter)

A few years ago
I noticed a house
On my street
Advertised on line

But when I looked
At the lawn
I saw no “For Sale”
Sign

I knocked on the door
And a lady answered
Seemed angered
And startled

I was glad she didn’t
Have a gun, she yelled at me
To go away
Which I gladly did

But I didn’t end up shot
Much less dead. I didn’t
Knock on the wrong door
Like Ralf shot in the arm and head

I wasn’t out
With my friends
Taking the wrong driveway
Where my life ends

I cannot tell you
How many times
I went to the wrong car
And inside I tried to climb

Innocent mistakes
Met with a gun
Injury and death
Swept under the rug

Arm more
Their battle cry
But the sane know
It is a deadly lie.
(end)

Most of you who keep up with the news know this poem is referring to three recent events in the past week. 1 a black teen going to the wrong house by mistake and the old man shooting an innocent person. Second story was a car full of young friends were looking for their friend’s house, took the wrong driveway, and the homeowner murdered one of the passengers. And yet another female teen shot in a parking lot because she mistook the vehicle as being the correct one.

I have done all those things throughout my life by mistake. And this is what the NRA lies about. They would sell you this fucking bullshit utopia that use of a firearm will always end up with Dirty Harry getting the bad guy. That is not the case. Successful use of a firearm against a stranger on stranger crime, IS THE LEAST LIKELY OUTCOME when using a firearm.

Mistaken identity is far more likely to get someone innocent injured or murdered. Especially in the home. The bottom line is that we have a flooded market and ease of access problem. It is way past time we stop letting the NRA and firearm industry control the narrative and hold our nation hostage to their sick worship of an object.