My Little Town

I asked Baxter if he wanted to post but he said he isn't ready yet, as he needs to catch up on current events a bit before deciding on a good topic.

So, I'm here again instead, to talk about something that occurred to me Sunday morning as I was lazing in bed trying to get up the energy to get up. My father-in-law was coming for breakfast, and it made me think about the differences between where he lives and where we live.

DH's dad and mom bought their house in Holmdel, New Jersey, when DH was about 5, and they were about 30. The house was not completed yet, so they went every day to watch it being built. At that time, Holmdel was the wide open country; their housing development was built on the site of an old orchard, and the road that their house faced was a country road with little traffic.

Now, 57 years later, that road is very busy; the farms in the area are all gone, replaced by highways and strip malls...

Holmdel is grouped into neighborhoods of 1950s homes like my father-in-law's modest 3-bedroom, split level/1 car garage house, tracts of slightly larger homes built in the mid-60s, and new neighborhoods filled with expensive McMansions in more exclusive locations, with an occasional original farmhouse scattered here and there.

(House photos courtesy of Zillow.com).

The top picture above is the house next door to Dad's, which was recently sold. If you look at that picture you can't tell it sits on a busy road, but believe me, it does. As you can imagine, people who live in the neighborhoods that have houses that look like Dad's do not interact with those who live in neighborhoods that have houses that look like the second picture. At all.

In earlier days, when DH was young, and his parents were active in their church and community, they knew their neighbors and had friends in the area, as well as siblings and cousins. Everyone had moved to the area at around the same time; their kids were all growing up together, and families had similar jobs and incomes.

But as everyone aged, their friends and extended family all moved far away or died, and now my mother-in-law has dementia and is living in a nursing home and Dad lives alone in the house that he and Mom watched being built so many years ago. He visits Mom in the nursing home - about a 20 minute drive from his house - every day, twice a day, unless he is away for the weekend up at our cabin for a break.

I was thinking about how isolated he is living in that house now that all his old neighbors are gone. He doesn't know anyone in the neighborhood. There is never anyone walking up or down his street, not even walking their dogs. There are no stores near enough for anyone to walk to, so everyone uses their cars to go anywhere. And where do they go? Strip malls, big box stores on the highway, and enclosed malls.

I am thankful that Dad does go to the nursing home every day, because at least that way people are watching out for him as well as for Mom. If he didn't show up unexpectedly they would worry and call us.

Thinking about all this, I started comparing his situation to our town. We live in Bloomfield, a suburb of New York, a gritty older town that has been pretty much built out for at least 100 years.

At one time Bloomfield too had farms, and went through its own development into a more populous town. But the housing that was built in the early 20th century was built under the assumption that people would need to be able to walk to stores or public transit. Much of our neighborhood was developed in 1912, so most people did not have cars. Even the north end of town, which is newer, was built when most families had only one car, so some walking was still required.

Many residential areas, particularly in the older end of town, were interspersed with businesses or factories, including the old Annin Flag Factory right down the street from us (visited by George H.W. Bush during his 1988 presidential campaign). This made it convenient for local people to get jobs in these companies and walk to work.

Westinghouse also employed many local people, who either walked to work or took the train to get there.

Now Westinghouse is gone (torn down, with the land still being remediated due to residual contamination from years of manufacturing as well as residue left from when uranium was refined there during the Manhattan Project). This is one of the few currently undeveloped spaces left in town other than a few parks. Other local factories were replaced with retail stores. Annin Flag Factory has been converted to upscale apartments.

But the town is still laid out to enable people to walk to destinations. Our house is within walking distance to the train station (25 minutes to Penn Station, New York), and there is a convenience store on the corner where we can buy newspapers, coffee, and a good selection of groceries. There are convenience stores scattered in a number of nearby neighborhoods - almost no one is more than a 5-minute walk from a little store, at least at our end of town.

There are also a myriad of very good local restaurants in several areas of town, offering foods of various types, including Greek, Japanese, Thai, Italian, Cuban and many other cuisines.

In contrast, in Holmdel, there aren't even any local or family-owned restaurants except one nearby Italian/Pizza restaurant; the rest are all out on the highway and most are chains.

In our neighborhood in Bloomfield, there is a senior citizens apartment building nestled within the residential homes, two blocks from our local county park, enabling seniors to walk to stores or the park and mingle with other neighbors who they see as they come and go.

The neighbors look out for one another here. Elderly neighbors living alone are a matter of concern to the whole neighborhood. One of our neighbors regularly took an elderly woman grocery shopping and helped her with her bills, since her own children lived far away. She did this until the woman, at age 100, moved to Colorado to be with her daughter.

Many neighborhoods in town hold block parties, which draw new neighbors into the fold and reunite other neighbors who don't see each other often due to their work schedules. People of all ages come to our annual block party and enjoy the food and good company.

Some residents have formed neighborhood associations that try to tackle ongoing issues in town rather than moving elsewhere in defeat.

Ours is a diverse town, with people of all nationalities, races and ethnic backgrounds intermingling. Our population is 54% white, with the rest a mix of African American, Hispanic, Asian, and others. Holmdel, in contrast, is 78% white, with 17% Asian and very few other nationalities represented. I feel diversity leads to strength, versatility, and open-mindedness. Many people move to Bloomfield from places like Brooklyn, and cite our town's diversity as a positive in helping them make their decision to move.

Best of all, at least from my perspective, if you move into Bloomfield, a fully developed town, you don't have to worry about the open space around you being turned into strip malls and highways - the parks are preserved for our use already, and whatever else has happened, for good or for bad, has already happened (such as the Garden State Parkway ramming itself through the middle of town in 1954).

The town center may have a different look now, but the streets are still the same, and the Green on which the local militia once drilled during the Revolution is still there, along with the 1796 Presbyterian church.

When you come to Bloomfield, you know what you are getting. There will be no surprises, as can happen if, as my in-laws did, you buy a new house in a new town surrounded by lovely farmland, thinking it will stay that way.

Bloomfield is continuing to emphasize walkability in town, making its streets even more pedestrian friendly by narrowing portions of one of its main roads and making bump-outs to slow traffic. More bike lanes are planned as well.

I am not writing this to put down Holmdel in any way - Dad's house has a lovely back yard, which is surprisingly quiet despite the busy road out front. The PNC Arts Center is nearby - in fact, Dad goes there to walk in the open space and woods on their grounds every morning for exercise. His town is convenient to the Parkway (to come visit us!) and the Jersey Shore. When they were younger, Dad and Mom used to go Sandy Hook State Park regularly to ride their bikes or attend concerts on the beach.

But the lack of a downtown of its own or a culture of walking and interacting with neighbors is a downfall of this type of community, built during the peak of America's love affair with the car. It is particularly problematic if a person is elderly and alone because of the lack of social support. Dad is 87 now, and still drives. But what will happen if he can no longer drive?

Does Bloomfield have its problems? Hell, yes. The racial diversity that works well most of the time can also lead to friction; there is a perception that those who live in the north end of town look down on those in the south end of town, which tends to skew somewhat more to the minority population.

Our town has managed to drag out a redevelopment of the town Center for well over a decade due partly to a lack of savvy, poor decisions and dissension among the township officials, with a couple of lawsuits thrown in. The project is finally getting off the ground and other parts of the downtown are also being redeveloped. However, many developments taking place are opposed by some of the residents.

The last few years have also seen their share of big controversies in town unrelated to redevelopment. The Bloomfield Health Department and the Board of Health were embroiled in one over the fate of a pit bull named Memphis. The controversy continues to this day, as the dog was sent out to South Dakota to be "rehabilitated" by a person purported to be a trainer - and remains there to this day.

The police department has also been roiled by dissension, with disagreements over who should be police chief, claims of political interference, and most recently, accusations of police misconduct.

But, for all its ups and downs, my little town really IS a "little" town - despite its population of almost 50,000 - because people know each other. We meet up with neighbors in the local stores, at the park, at the restaurants and at town meetings. We discuss our concerns on Facebook, on online forums, and in the Letters to the Editor of the local newspapers (there are two). We are a community.

We may not always agree with each other on various issues, and emotions can get heated at election time, but we are all Bloomfielders. And I'd rather live in Bloomfield than out in the sterile, suburban sprawl of Holmdel any day.

The Snowpocalypse Continues, and What I've Been Up to for 8 Months

Well, here is my first post of what I hope will be a month of daily postings. I decided that is the only way to get back into the habit of blogging and catching up with all my blogger friends and their posts as well.

One reason for my long absence is, for the second half of last year we were living in a condition of total chaos as our kitchen was being totally renovated.

It all started about a year ago when we decided to renovate our upstairs bathroom, which had deteriorated to the point that we truly expected the tub to land downstairs on top of the kitchen stove at some point. Tiles had fallen off the tub wall to reveal that there was no actual wall behind them. Things were not good.

The configuration of the bathroom was horrendous as well - it was claustrophobic and dated to the 1940s or 50s, we believe.

So we contracted with a local kitchen and bath contractor and started on the bathroom. It was to be a full rip-out, and they would be turning the tub crossways under the window to make the room more spacious.

Once they ripped everything out, they found, no surprise to us, that all the joists needed to be replaced and/or reinforced since they were rotting from water leakage over many years. This meant ripping out the kitchen ceiling to be able to get underneath the joists.

Now, the kitchen ceiling was a problem to begin with. It was a dropped ceiling, and we had long known that above that was a long-ago disaster of some sort, as there were two layers of plaster ceiling above it that had obviously collapsed at some point. All of the later plumbing had been piped in below the plaster ceiling and above the dropped ceiling.

To make a long story short, the bathroom turned out great. The change was amazing.

But before the contractor did anything about closing up the kitchen ceiling, he said,  "Um, since your ceiling is already all torn apart, if you were ever thinking of redoing your kitchen, now might be the time to do it."

DH and I looked at each other, thinking about the fact that some day we may want to sell the house, and the current kitchen just didn't cut it. It should be noted I'd also been watching a lot of HGTV recently. We decided to go for it.

We had to take everything out of the kitchen and the pantry. I had no idea how much STUFF we had stuffed into the cabinets. It all went in boxes. I tried to separate out stuff we didn't need anymore or was too old and gross to keep, from stuff we wanted to keep. The boxes went in the living room, the dining room, and the sun porch where we hang out and watch TV.

The boxes stayed there from the end of August to the end of December. No cooking could take place so we spent a lot of time up at the cabin or eating out.

When we were at home, DH would go out and buy McDonalds Egg McMuffins for breakfast on weekends and I was hitting Dunkin' Donuts for a bagel and coffee during the week. Every day around 8 a.m. the Men would come to work on the kitchen. We got to know a lot of the Men. The dogs loved all of them, and they loved the dogs too, luckily. The cat mostly hid under the bed.

Finally just before the holidays, it was all complete, even the painting. And then we had to put everything away. We managed to give away all the stuff that we wanted to give away (thank goodness the veterans and the Lupus Foundation keep calling me to see if I have anything to donate - I kept saying yes and making sure I had boxes to put out for them).

In the end we had gotten rid of our pantry and replaced it with a powder room. We finally have a first floor bathroom, and now that we have it, I can't imagine how we lived here for 27 years without one.

The rest of the pantry was converted into a deep closet, which we are using as a smaller version of the pantry - we put a set of shelves from Ikea that we'd had in our pantry into the back of the closet, so all the extra cans and boxes, pet food, paper plates and whatnot can go there. The rest of the closet has room for the vacuum cleaner and other cleaning items. We put hooks on the back of the door for coats, since we usually come in the back door.

We like our new kitchen so much we put a small table in the middle so we could eat dinner there and sit and stare at it in wonder. I've even been cooking more as a result of having a brand new stove, and refrigerator that actually is in the same room as the stove and sink! The old configuration required that our fridge be in the pantry, which was quite inconvenient!

So. That is what kept us occupied last fall and early winter. 

Then the snow came.

If you are living anywhere in the Northeast, or even many parts of the South, you know this has been the Winter from Hell. I haven't seen this much snow since maybe the mid-90s.

Of course, there were snowstorms in more recent years, including 2011 when our dog Angel showed up in our driveway at 8:30 at night on February 10. I wrote about her briefly at the time, but I don't believe I shared the full story of how she was found.

When we first saw her, she came from behind a huge snowbank at the end of our driveway, just as we got out of our car. We had been to an "elegant dining" event at my mother-in-law's nursing home and were just getting home. As I stepped out of the car, I heard DH say, "Well, hello little pit, where did you come from?" And then this very thin white and gray pit bull with cruelly cropped ears and hanging teats, who had obviously recently had puppies, timidly approached him.

She let us both pat her and the next thing you know she was following us up the front steps. The forecast was for the temperature to plummet to 17 degrees overnight. What could we do but bring her in?

Diva started barking when she heard and smelled a strange dog, but we were able to hustle the new arrival into the kitchen and keep her there with gates overnight. We started off the next day by giving her a much-needed bath and clipping her over-long nails. Here is what she looked like right after we found her.

We then took her to the vet and learned she had mange and had to have shots of ivermectin and special medicated baths. After a few days it became clear that she was now our dog. She wasn't going anywhere and we had fallen in love with her by then. We think she was used for breeding and then dumped when the last puppies were gone. 

We learned later on that she had approached another house in our neighborhood just before we came home, and they had not let her in. At that point she must have seen our car drive up and ran up the street to greet us.

We named her Angel because she came out of the dark like a white apparition. Her personality matches the description as well, since she is as sweet as can be and all she ever wants to do is sit as close to her people as possible. In the beginning she would run out in the yard to do her business and run right back in again as if she was afraid she might get locked out.

Now, after three years, she is much more confident. She and Diva have become great friends and make a wonderful team; especially when they're begging for food! And, she's not skinny anymore!

Of course, things aren't completely perfect. Angel has a very strong prey drive and apparently wants to eat our cat Baxter. He has to stay upstairs now, separated from Angel, as we still have not managed to train her out of trying to chase him. 

However, Baxter and Diva sleep on the bed with us at night, so he does get his share of attention. Plus we have been bringing him up to our cabin in the Adirondacks when we were still going up there - he actually seems to enjoy it. He gets the whole loft to himself and can look down on whatever we are doing and lord it over the dogs.

So, anyway, back to the snow. 

Sunday night we are supposed to get yet another snowstorm, and I really don't know if I can face it. Here it is, March 1, with possibly 8-12 inches of snow bearing down on us. Many other years we've been able to go up to the cabin by this time of year, but not this time. It has been so cold that we haven't been able to go there since early December. We truly have cabin fever this year, in more ways than one! 

Picture courtesy of BitStrips(R)

So basically I've been a hermit for the past several months. I sit around most of the day on Facebook; it's amazing how fast the day goes. While Facebook is indeed a big time-sucker, on the other hand most of my Facebook friends post links to interesting articles and news items, which I find very educational. Plus I have some really good discussions with many of them. (Of course, that's because a lot of my Facebook friends I first met through the blogging world!) 

I haven't even gone out to go grocery shopping if I can help it. I have discovered the joys of Peapod, the grocery delivery service used by Stop-n-Shop. It is remarkably reasonable - only $6.96 for delivery of all orders over $100, which is easy to reach with very little effort! Plus you give the driver a tip. But it's worth it to have it all delivered to my door, especially when there are heavy things like cat litter or bird seed! Too bad there isn't a wine delivery service as well!

I also keep busy with local goings-on. I write articles about my town's council meetings and occasionally planning, zoning or other board meetings, for a local blog called Baristanet.com, which includes news, restaurant reviews, and other information about several towns in our area. My mother would be happy I'm finally doing something with my communications degree, for what it's worth.

There has certainly been no shortage of news in our town. We've become a national spectacle because of an incident where our local police were caught on video pulling a car over on the highway and then proceeding to beat up the driver. All the facts have not come out yet, but the video is pretty clear that the man was being hit even after he was in handcuffs, and that his hands were up when the police first approached the car. This came on the heels of another scandal where the acting police chief accused one of the councilmen of trying to coerce favors from him. Both incidents are now under investigation by the county prosecutor's office. So, never a dull moment in our little town.

I think I have caught you up on the main events in my life for now. Next time I may have Baxter post! I know he is very popular with all his fans, and he has lots to talk about, I am sure, after all this time.

Watch this space!

Just wanted to check in and let you know, if anyone is still looking at this page, that I have, as usual, made a New Year's resolution to blog again. I know, I know, it's the end of February. But I've been working on my other New Year's resolutions and have to do this a little at a time or my brain can't take the stress.

I updated the format and colors of the blog a bit - always a good way to procrastinate rather than actually write something - and deleted some of the links in my blogroll. I deleted any "professional" sites such as Huffington Post or Daily Kos, because, after all, aren't we all on Facebook these days? I see links from these sites all the time in my news feed over there so no need to link them here.

Sadly, I also deleted some links to blogs that I have enjoyed in the past but have not been updated in over a year. I hope if any of you are among them and see this post, you will let me know if you start blogging again and I will be happy to add you back to the list!

I also cleaned up a bit of the junk that had accumulated along my sidebar - all those old "awards" we used to give each other back in the old days - just to make it look a bit cleaner.

So, now that the housekeeping is done, I'm ready to blog again. I am going to try to write something every day starting on March 1. Hope you will hold me to it! ;-)

A Historic Day in America!

Oh happy day! The Supreme Court came down on the right side of history today by ruling the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional and dismissing the Proposition 8 case due to the plaintiffs not having legal standing to bring the case before the court, thus allowing marriage equality again in California!

As a result of the DOMA ruling, the federal government will now recognize legally married gay couples in states that recognize their marriages and give them all the rights and privileges afforded to all married couples. And because the ruling is based on the equal protection clause, this ruling could have much broader consequences.

This is a historic day for the whole country - it is a huge step forward to fulfilling the country's promise that EVERYONE has a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness! Let's keep the momentum going until all states become marriage equality states!

This Blog is Not Dead Yet!

Where does the time go? I can't believe it's been five months since I - or more properly, Baxter - last posted. I miss reading everyone's blogs, but for some reason keep getting sucked into Facebook and end up in long conversations over there. One of the things I always liked about blogging was the conversations we have in the comments section, which Facebook seems to so easily supplant. However, I miss the effort it takes to actually think about a subject and write coherently about it, and even more so, read the excellent posts on other blogs. I must come over to the Blog World more frequently again.

So, for those who only know me from here, I apologize for being out of touch for so long.

I never did write a post on gun control as planned - as you can figure out, I am in favor of it - but did have some great discussions over on Facebook about it - so much so that one of my former FB friends unfriended me. She is a libertarian I had known from having worked together years ago, who had such strong feelings about the Second Amendment that she couldn't even bring herself to deal with me anymore.

We used to have what I thought were civil discussions about the issues we disagree on (which is most of them with the exception of some social issues), but apparently she just couldn't address the issue further and unfriended me! I was sorry, as I do value being able to discuss issues with people who don't agree with me so as to understand their perspective and also to know what the opposition is up to!

Now I have discovered a Facebook friend who friended me at some point is apparently an Islamist extremist, which I had no idea about until a post he made yesterday. I am thinking I should unfriend him before I find myself getting a visit from the FBI or CIA or something after they monitor my Facebook friends list!

Speaking of which, what are your thoughts about the U.S. surveillance program that Edward Snowden recently revealed to the world?

Personally, I was not shocked. It's not as if we didn't know the Patriot Act had plenty of questionable things in it that gave the government broad powers when it came to tracking terrorism.

But this does seem like a slippery slope, and I am disappointed that President Obama has supported these practices as well as other policies initiated under President Bush.

That said, I am very suspicious about this Snowden guy and how he happened to have access to the information he subsequently revealed.  Here's a high-school dropout who suddenly got a $122,000 a year job at a major government contractor, and immediately apparently had secret clearance (which usually takes a lot of time to get) - and then leaves after only 3 months to spill the beans to the world about what the government is doing to monitor American citizens' communications. Who is this guy? Who placed him where he had access to all this sensitive information, and why? I am not convinced he acted alone.

Now he's saying that we've been hacking into China's computer systems and the U.S. is afraid he may defect to China along with all the secrets he has compiled. While I understand some may applaud the revelation of the U.S. government surveillance program, this man has ultimately endangered the security of the United States and to me is more of a traitor than a hero. I'll be interested to hear others' thoughts about this.

In the next post, Baxter will tell you about his Great Escape on our recent trip to Cape Cod. More to come.

A Cat's Eye View: Looking Back and Looking Forward

Baxter here. A Belated Happy New Year to all my Fans.

As the Old Joke goes, I'm glad to be Here - in fact, I'm glad to be Anywhere!

Some of you may know that I had a Scary Health Problem a week or two ago. All of a Sudden I couldn't eat my Food properly! My Tongue hurt. It stuck out the Side of my Mouth and that made me Drool. It was Disgusting.

Luckily, as soon as my Humans noticed the Problem, they rushed me to the Animal Emergency and Referral Associates over in Fairfield, NJ; because of course this first popped up on a Friday night after the Regular Vet closed.

They are Wonderful People there, although I did not Appreciate being held and having them look at my Tongue. It turned out there was a Big Lump down there under my Tongue with a sore on it. The vet thought it was Cancer, but they couldn't tell until they did a Biopsy. So I spent the Whole Weekend at the AERA with an IV to keep me hydrated until they could Put Me Under on Monday morning and do the Biopsy. In the Meantime they gave me Steroids for inflammation.

By the time my Female Human picked me up on Tuesday morning I felt Great! I came Home and happily scarfed down a Whole Bowl of wet food. I purred. I rolled on the Bed. I was a New Cat.

Amazingly, the Biopsy turned out to be Normal - no Cancer! I am still taking Steroids, but am feeling Fine. I go back for a Checkup next Tuesday to see if the Problem is gone.

So that's the News from My perspective.

Now, for the Rest of the News. As Everyone knows by Now, the Fiscal Cliff Disaster didn't quite Happen. At the Last Minute the President and the Republicans were able to come to an Agreement to raise taxes on the Richer-than-Most-People, those making $400,000 or above as a Single Person, or on couples making $450,000 and higher, among Other Things. Plus, Federal Unemployment Benefits were Extended for a year. But none of the Budget Cuts that were originally part of the So-Called Cliff were enacted - that Fight is Yet to Come.

Now, I know Some of You feel that the President gave in to the GOP by allowing the Cutoff for being "Rich" to rise from $250,000 in income, which was the Original Idea, to $400-$450,000. But as a Cat, I look at it This Way. If there were a Big Tomcat over on one side of the Yard that had a big HUGE Two-Gallon Bucket full of Catnip, the difference between those two amounts would probably be the Difference between a Quarter Cup of Catnip vs. a Half Cup of Catnip out of that whole Two Gallon Bucket. So the Tax is going to be on the Rest of the Bucket, which is still a Lot. Right? Please do Correct Me if I am wrong in this Analogy. I am Only a Cat and we don't really Understand Taxes too well.

Looking Ahead, it seems the GOP still doesn't Admit that they Lost the Election in November. They vow to have a Big Fight over Raising the Debt Ceiling next month even though President Obama says he won't Fight about that subject. It Remains to be Seen whether he can avoid that Fight.

My Female Human will be back shortly to discuss Gun Control issues. In the Meantime, hang in there, the Days are already getting Longer and Winter cannot last Forever! Have some Catnip and Relax. I know I will!

P.S. My Female Human has added a Word Verification thingie to the Comments. There were Too Many spammy comments being Posted on the Blog. Apologies to Our Loyal Readers for having to Put you through that Annoyance.

Downsizing Man's Best Friend

This is one of those "WTF is wrong with people?" posts.

I was reading the New York Times today and saw an article about a family in North Carolina who downsized their home from a 3,200 square foot home to a much more manageable 1,300 square foot house.

Always attracted to stories about people who manage to simplify their lives, I read the article with interest. Ever since we bought our cabin in the woods in the southeastern Adirondacks, which is basically one big room with a bathroom and a sleeping alcove plus a sun porch that can double as a guest bedroom, I have realized that our larger home in New Jersey is really more than we need.

The article started off in a heart-warming way, explaining how the family realized that the only reason they used one of their bathrooms was to wash the family dog, Toby, and that they spent most of their time as a family in one section of the house, in the back where their family room was.

"'The eat-in kitchen and the family room in the back of the house,' Mr. Kelly says. 'If we looked at where we lived as a family, it was the back of the house. When I thought about it, I realized we never spent any time in the bedrooms, except to sleep. The boys did their homework in the kitchen. The house was a waste.'"

So the family sold their big house for $675,000 and instead bought a 1,300-square-foot ranch house for just $245,000, leaving lots of money to play with ($300,000 was spent on renovations). So they added a large deck (15' by 45'), redid the kitchen/dining room/living room area, and installed built-in storage space in their new home.

"Another big-ticket item was the built-in storage. Made by Bo Taylor Custom Woodworking, a local company, it cost the Kellys $52,000. But it includes an entrance closet where the boys can drop their book bags, and cabinetry throughout the house. It’s so extensive, in fact, that none of the bedrooms have a dresser."

The article goes on to describe their wonderful new situation. The gas/electric bills have fallen from $300 a month to $100 a month, their property taxes went down by about half, and they now keep things simple by digitizing their paperwork so they don't have stuff all over the house.

So what's the problem with this story? The last paragraph, the kicker:

"There has been one sad downside to the downsizing, though. The new house, the Kellys realized, was too small for a dog the size of Toby. So he has gone to live with a family that has a bigger house, as well as another collie to keep him company."

So, back to my first line. WTF??? You downsized your house but now decide it's "too small" for your DOG? Are you KIDDING me? First of all, the dog couldn't care less how much room he had. He just wanted to be with you. (Our two dogs are each sitting next to us on our respective couches here at the aforementioned cabin that is basically one big room. There is plenty of room.)

This house this family bought is a 3-bedroom house. People lived in houses this size for years back in my childhood (and still do) - along with dogs, cats, and hamsters and children - and there was room for everyone.

No, there was plenty of room for Toby in the house - but apparently not in their hearts. If they had a third child they wouldn't have gotten rid of the child just because they moved to a smaller house. So why is it OK to give away the dog? And what kind of example is that for their children in terms of teaching them a sense of responsibility?

Yes, I know this is not the most egregious example of uncaring dog owners. I know that there are worse dog owners, dog owners who turn their 15-year-old dog in to a high kill shelter because they don't feel like taking care of him, or turn their dog in because they're "moving to where dogs aren't allowed" or because "they had a new baby" or "don't have time." Yes, those people are much, much worse. At least these folks found a good home for the dog. But I don't think they should be having feature articles written about them in the Times. They don't deserve the attention.

Toby, you are probably the lucky one in this story. Hopefully your new family will value you more than your old one did.

A Cat's Eye View

Baxter here. It's been awhile, but don't think I have Forgotten my Fans. I have just been Waiting for this Election business to be Over. It was all Too Much for Me.

I am just Glad that it turned out the Way it did and that we didn't have another Big Mess like back in 2000, as some were worried we would. Of course, I knew a Cool Cat like President Obama would know the right way to get back in the White House for four more years!

He sure didn't have much of a Second Honeymoon, though, did he?

Boom, right after the Election came the News that General Petraeus, the Director of the CIA, had been Fooling Around with his Biographer, Paula Broadwell - and then came all kinds of other Stories about these hot Twin Sisters, Jill Kelley and Natalie Khawam, who were hanging around all the Generals.

Amusingly to Me, these stories always refer to the Twins as "Socialites,"  a rather Quaint Term. Reminds My Humans of a Tom Waits song called Invitation to the Blues.  "He probably left her for a socialite, didn't love her 'cept at night, and then he's drunk and didn't even tell her that he cared..."
But I digress... sorry...

Apparently the former head of the CIA is spending his Days "grovelling" to his wife of 38 years, Holly, according to an Article in the UK's Daily Mail. My Female Human doesn't blame his Wife for being Furious, which is how her Mood is described by Those in the Know.

Even though it was Broadwell that had the Affair with the General, the Involvement of the Twin Socialites also seemed Rather Suspicious... something my Female Human felt was particularly Obvious in this Picture which has been Published far and wide, of the two Women, Petraeus (second from left) and Holly (far right) along with Jill's husband, in the center.

Two of these things are Not Like the Others, wouldn't you say?

In Fact, it has all Become so Convoluted and Involved so Many People in the Cast of Characters that the Borowitz Report posted an Article saying the CIA has come out with a Pamphlet to help you know whether YOU may be part of the Petraeus Scandal without even knowing it!

It is also being Reported that Paula Broadwell, who is married with two Children, is "devastated" by the Harm caused by the Fling between her and the General.

Ah, Humans... what is that Old Saying? "What a tangled Web we Weave, when First we Practice to Deceive."

Just goes to Show that perhaps Male Humans should be Neutered, just like Tomcats are, so they won't be Getting Into Trouble when they are past their Prime and vulnerable to Younger Women's wiles.

Or, per the Cartoon that Some have been Posting over on Facebook, maybe this is what Happens when you Allow Heterosexuals to Serve Openly in the Military?

At Any Rate, this Scandal is finally moving Off the front pages since it's been a Couple of Weeks and we're Off to the Races again with the Fiscal Cliff looming.

My Female Human says if she hears the words "Fiscal Cliff" one more time, she Won't Be Responsible For Her Actions.

President Obama Won the Election. I Hope he will use his "Political Capital" as They call it, to Stand Firm and not let the Republicans walk all Over Him during negotations. So Far So Good, as far as I can tell. For all the Latest News about the Fiscal Cliff, here's a Good Article. A few Choice Quotes to follow. The first, from GOP House Majority Leader Boehner:

"Mr. Boehner said that the White House needs to get serious about offering specific spending cuts they would put on the table towards a potential deal. 'All eyes are on the White House, the country doesn’t need a victory lap, it needs leadership,' Mr. Boehner said at a press conference in the Capitol."

This was countered by a Response from Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid:

"Mr. Reid said it was incumbent on House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio) to put forward a realistic offer in response to Democrats’ plan to allow tax rates on the wealthiest Americans to increase at the end of the year. Mr. Reid said that Mr. Geithner has not made a new offer to Republicans as both sides try to broker a tax and spending deal before the end of the year. 'The president’s made the offer–there’s no offer to be made,' Mr. Reid told a handful of reporters as he walked into his offices. 'There’s no offer to be made.'"

Ah, Humans. They continue to Spar like a bunch of Tomcats Yowling in a Circle, hoping One will finally get the Upper Hand and get a Good Grip on the back of their Opponent's Neck.

The Good News I see is that at least President Obama apparently hasn't already Given Away the Farm up Front, as he was wont to do in the Beginning of his first Term. There is No Sense in him Offering ANY cuts in Medicare, Social Security or Medicaid. Let the Republicans make that Suggestion. Otherwise the Republicans will take Whatever the President Offers in Cuts and then want MORE. Plus this way, it is Obvious that it would be the Republicans who want to Cut these Programs that are Very Popular with the people!

In Other Good News, Senator Dick Durbin said that Social Security should NOT be part of the Fiscal Cliff talks as it does not contribute to the Deficit.

Let's Hope that the fact that some Republicans are finally Rejecting their Pledge to Grover Norquist to Never Raise Taxes may Actually lead to Progress in the Talks. But I'm not Holding My Breath. So far I don't see a Lot of Compromising going on on the GOP side. It may Take Awhile for the Fact they Lost to really Sink In. If it ever does.

With that, I will Bid you Farewell for Now. I think we will All need a Lot of Catnip to get through the End of the Year. Hopefully January 1 won't Find us at the Bottom of the Fiscal Cliff!

Money Alone Can't Buy You Love

With President Obama's decisive reelection on Tuesday night, the American people said "no" to the many millions of dollars spent by GOP Super PACs and people like Sheldon Adelson, who donated a small fortune of his own money to support Republican candidates, ending up with nothing to show for it.

After the Citizens United decision by the Supreme Court, many on the left feared that the practically unlimited amount of money that would pour into these surrogate organizations for the Republican candidates would leave the Democrats in the dust.

As it turned out, all that money was not enough to buy the election. President Obama was declared the winner a little after 11 p.m., with over 300 electoral college votes already in and possibly more to come, if Florida goes his way, as is expected. Nate Silver was right, and Unskewed Polls and Karl Rove were wrong. It's all over but the spin.

So why didn't all that money and advertising help the GOP? Maybe the answer isn't that the money couldn't help, but that it was used inefficiently.

In market research, there are models that can analyze and predict the effectiveness and the efficiency of advertising. There is a certain point at which advertising no longer influences the viewer. There is a certain point when the amount of money spent is no longer efficient and additional spending adds diminishing return on investment.

(Source: http://www.consumerpsychologist.com/marketing_introduction.html)

That saturation point is probably reached even sooner for negative advertising than for other kinds of advertising. The voters just start wishing it was all over, and become cynical about whichever candidate continues to push these ads on them. And it doesn't help that some of Romney's last ads, in Ohio, were full of lies that the voters knew better than to believe in the first place.

Of course, the Obama campaign also had plenty of money from donations. They raised a billion dollars themselves and had plenty of advertising. But the difference was in the way they used it. Their advertising started earlier, before Romney's campaign really took off, and defined him to the American voters before he had a chance to.

In addition, they targeted individual voters and identified a whole database full of potential supporters who fit the profile of Obama supporters - but hadn't yet become supporters.

In market research, this is called identifying your "Strategic Value" stakeholder or consumer - the target person who is most likely to respond to you or to your product and help you achieve your objectives. The next trick is to gain insight into that person and understand what makes them tick. Apparently the President's campaign was able to do this and to motivate those stakeholders to go out and stand in line for hours to vote for President Obama.

But it came down to a lot more than just good marketing principles for the President and his supporters.

It also came down to changing demographics - and a new coalition of diverse citizens who came together to reject the old viewpoints offered by the GOP, to reject hate and bigotry, and to support the President's vision of moving "Forward!" rather than backward.

Hispanics, Asians and African-Americans were all key voting blocs in the Democratic victory. Obama won among Hispanics 71% to 27% for Romney; among Asians by 73-26%, and among African-Americans by 93%. These population groups are all growing, while white Americans, who were more apt to vote for Romney, are declining as a portion of the electorate, a trend that is expected to continue.

President Obama did better among women than his opponent, with 55% of women voting for him vs. Romney. And, showing the importance of women's issues, candidates Akin and Mourdock, both of whom were castigated by their remarks about rape, lost their Senate races.

In addition, many women were elected, including Elizabeth Warren, who took back the late Senator Edward Kennedy's seat from Republican Scott Brown in Massachusetts, the first female senator from the state. Other firsts: Tammy Baldwin, from Wisconsin, will be the first openly gay Senator. In Hawaii, Mazie Hirono will be the first Asian American woman there, while Hawaiian Tulsi Gabbard will be the first Hindu elected to the House of Representatives.

Young people came out to support President Obama again, as they did in 2008. He captured 60% of the vote for people 18-29, compared to only 36% for Romney. This age group represented 19% of the electorate, up a point from four years ago.

In addition, gay marriage was approved by voters in Maryland and Maine, and will likely be approved in Washington State as well, the first time same-sex marriage has been approved by the voters themselves. Other states allow gay marriage, but the decision was made by the state courts or legislatures. And in Minnesota, a referendum to amend the state constitution to prohibit same-sex marriage failed, another victory against bigotry.

Washington State and Colorado voted to legalize recreational marijuana; Massachusetts approved medical marijuana use. The times truly are a-changin'.

And as Rachel Maddow pointed out last night, if the Republicans don't start changing and join the reality-based world, they will be a footnote in history. Now they have to figure out whether to continue to double down on their far right wing positions and become less and less relevant to the population, or whether they will do some sincere soul-searching and try to come into the 21st century.

I'm hoping for the latter, because we need at least two viable parties in this country to keep a real dialogue going and to work together to solve problems. There are too many issues that need to be addressed; we can't afford another four years of gridlock and partisanship. But it takes two to tango and the GOP needs to step onto the dance floor.

Down to the Wire

Well, here it is, finally - the last day before the 2012 election. And things are looking relatively good for President Obama, thanks to the October Surprise that turned out to be Hurricane Sandy.

According to Nate Silver, the President now has an 86% chance of winning reelection, thanks to leads in the battleground states and a growing lead in the polls for the popular vote (now at 50.6 vs. 48.5). Although Silver says there are plenty of other reasons that Obama has rebounded since his performance at the first debate, I have no doubt that the hurricane and its aftermath did play a part in Romney's recent slippage.

I live in New Jersey, which, along with New York City, suffered the worst damage in the storm. Thankfully for us here in Northern New Jersey, the worst we got was a lot of downed trees and power lines. Since the rain wasn't that bad, we were spared the flooding we got last year during Hurricane Irene. But as everyone knows by now, the Jersey Shore was virtually destroyed and will take a long time to rebuild.

The destruction in New York City and New Jersey brought an endorsement for President Obama from Mayor Michael Bloomberg, an Independent former Republican, who said he thought the president is best equipped to do something about climate change, which he said the storm made clear was an important issue.

And, even more importantly, Republican Governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie, who gave the keynote speech at Romney's convention, praised the President's response to the hurricane and accompanied him on a tour of the devastation at the Jersey Shore.

"Christie told news outlets that the president’s response had been 'outstanding,' said that coordinating with the administration had been 'wonderful,' and remarked that 'the president has been all over this and he deserves great credit.' He even told Fox News the president had done a 'great job for New Jersey' while staying above the fray about politics: 'I’ve got a job to do here in New Jersey that’s much bigger than presidential politics, and I could care less about any of that stuff.'" 

After receiving criticism from the Romney camp for his embrace of President Obama during the crisis, Christie reiterated his support for Romney but refused to back down on his praise for the President.

"'I'm a Republican, I've endorsed Mitt Romney and I support him. I intend to vote for him on Tuesday,'" Christie said. 'But the fact of the matter is that if the President of the United States comes here and he is willing to help my people, and he does it, then I'm going to say nice things about him because he's earned it.'"

In the meantime, Romney didn't do himself any favors by cynically calling an already-planned campaign rally a "storm relief rally" and actually buying some of the "donations" that supporters then picked up to "donate" to hurricane victims. It also doesn't help that he ignored the fact that the Red Cross discourages physical donations and prefers monetary aid, as sorting and shipping actual goods just takes more time, when it is usually faster to use the money to buy goods from locations closer to the center of the crisis. (You can go here to donate to the Red Cross, by the way!)

Romney's campaign also shot itself in the foot by airing deceptive commercials in Ohio during this same time period that warned Jeep and General Motors were sending jobs to China. Both Chrysler (which owns Jeep) and GM emphatically denied the accuracy of the ads.

So the general public saw President Obama acting presidential, suspending his campaign to look at storm damage, putting politics aside and joining a Republican governor in commiserating over his state's losses, while his opponent was holding a storm disaster campaign photo op and airing commercials that people knew were lies. Romney supporters shouldn't wonder why their candidate has lost his momentum and President Obama is pulling ahead.

But nothing is certain yet, as Republican governors in Florida and Ohio are doing their darnedest to suppress the vote in their states by limiting early voting, making sure there are horrendously long lines to vote in the (mostly) Democratic areas of their states, and any other strategies they can come up with.

In contrast, Christie has tried to make it easier for those displaced by the storm in New Jersey to vote, by adding early voting opportunities at county clerks' offices, extending the ability to vote by email to all citizens of the state, and allowing people to vote using provisional ballots if they are currently staying in a location outside of their usual voting area.

I am no fan of Christie, but I am very impressed with his fairness and bipartisanship during this crisis. There are certainly a lot worse Republican governors - and the ones in Ohio and Florida come to mind.

This is a very close election and every vote counts. Be sure your voice is heard and go to the polls tomorrow, if you haven't already voted early or with an absentee ballot!