I hear a train. A knife in my heart. Stay strong.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3xwCkhmies

WID

https://www.kptv.com/year-old-boy-dies-after-suspected-allergic-reaction-to-smell/article_c7b99f4b-1947-54a1-9828-c784f8ad9ccd.html

Sorry hungry peoples ~ no tax refund this year!

It will be interesting to see how Trump's supporters react in the next couple three weeks to the realization that his shutdown will delay their tax refunds. I'm guessing that most of the people who voted for him live paycheck to paycheck and they're not going to be happy about this. If it weren't for the neglected children this would be amusing. I'm guessing that most of the people who voted for him have nine or ten children who are probably hungry at this very moment. I picture hungry Appalachian coal miner children. But I also picture the Appalachian children catching crawdads and running home when they hear their mom's whistle and having corn pone with honey and butter.

I mailed a box to my children on December 26 and it was delivered on December 29. This is not direct contact. Mailing boxes to my children eases my grief. I mailed a heart rock, a couch comforter (bye bye happy memories), Pete's sketchbook, Pete's bowler hat filled with things ~ an Epipen, the snowbird with sunflower beak, Pete's farmer (very hard to let go of), red foam magician balls, his paperclip necklace with the hook magnet and my 'This Too Shall Pass' ring, sheet music of Bach's Two-Part Invention No. 8 and Pete's Sonata that he played every morning when he came downstairs before school, a Rocky and Bullwinkle dvd, that funny red bird pen, the little round mirror with the roses glued to it, lots of odds and ends from around the house, the black guitar fly swatter from the Hard Rock. On and on until non.

I saw Orion's Belt tonight, New Year's Eve, for the first time this winter, leading me home in the clear night sky. Orion's Belt is an old friend to me.

I mailed my son's trappers to them with hot chocolate on December 29 and the post office says it was delivered on December 31.

I mailed a heart rock, a Monty Python hat of Tim the Enchanter, a camera and the USB transfer card, a little canoe, and other funstuff to my children on December 27 and the post office says it was delivered on December 29. It fills my heart with joy to know that my wonderchildren receive my little gifts. It is grief relief.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rn5Tn0NDIGk

361

https://www.countcalculate.com/calendar/days-left-until-date/result?r=fwapihninx

Thirty days in jail and thirty days of house arrest. Three years of probation.

Jail. Confinement. Pacing. For what purpose? Punishment by society for using a chamber pot.

Most devastating is the yearlong loss of my children. Beyond comprehension. It is now a black/white/gray world to me. My home is not a home anymore. This is punishment beyond cruelty. I don't know if I will survive this Draconian punishment.

I love my children beyond the capability of words to describe.

363

Vietnamese Proverb

"Children without a father are like houses without rooftops."

January 26, 2010 post applies to the present, too

I can't accept that it is possible to be this lonely and yet my heart keeps beating. I have mantras I repeat daily. "Big picture!" "You can do this!" "You're the dad!" "Love will win!" "Stay positive!" "Stay alive!" Each day, each hour, is different.

Loss and confusion, grief and loneliness

Pathetic Bullies

So I'm surfing through some sad news stories and I read the comment sections and there I find post after post after identical post of "my prayers," "gobbless," "in a better place now," "god needed another angel," "my prayers," "gobbless." On and on. So I post a comment saying that there is no better place for a child than in her mother or father's arms. I say that the only reason people believe in a biblical god is because the religious indoctrination of children is still legal.
So what happens? Buybull thumpers spent hours googling my commenting name and actually found out who I was. Then they sent emails to my immediate supervisor AND the president of the university where I work. They attacked my family website and mailed death threats to me. Pathetic bullies. It seems to me that their god wouldn't be proud of them for their actions.
So I had to shut down my website for awhile. I had to explain to my supervisor the whole story. Now it's all fixed up and I feel even stronger about posting my feelings. I changed my commenting name and made it impossible to trace back to me. It's completely anonymous.
Good grief. Christian bullies, like all bullies, are pathetic.

Rosalie Walks!

13 and a half months old and Rosalie has started walking. She is such an amazing person. I have three amazing children, each of them with very distinct personalities. I am such a lucky dad. I tell them everday that I love them and that my love for them is bigger than the sky. Watch Sammy kiss his sister's foot at 0:30 seconds into the video. Where's my Kleenex?

Heaven? No thanks!

Eternity is an unpleasant concept to me. How could I be happy in heaven knowing that freak accidents and horrible murders are happening on Earth? Does god make me blind to events on Earth? Well, who does he think he is? I want to know about my loved ones! Good times or bad, I want to be there for them. What happens in heaven? Are my memories erased? No thanks.

When someone dies, especially a child, I often hear religiots say things like, "she's in a better place now" or "god needed another angel." Those comments make me sick. How could a child be in a better place than her mother's arms? When god "needs" another angel, why doesn't he "take" them while they're sleeping, instead of drowning them, or letting them die in fires, etc.? Let's not even discuss sex crimes and murders. If there's a god, I hate him.

I do not believe in a god but even if I did I would never force religion upon my children. When they're older they can decide for themselves. I was raised a catholic (I refuse to capitalize it) and I remember being haunted as a small child by the man in agony nailed to that cross. Who would allow little children to gaze upon such a horrible sight? And then tell the child that the man died for ME! Crazy! Child abuse!

The older I get the more sad memories I gather. That's life. Many happy memories too, of course. If not for happiness life wouldn't be worth it and it wouldn't make sense to have children. I see now that eventually the sad will outweigh the happy and I'll be ready to step aside for the next generation. Hopefully I'll die in my sleep, although so many brave and innocent humans have died in such painful ways that I feel guilty for hoping for a painless exit. Perhaps, if I get the big C, I'll walk to the edge of the Grand Canyon and learn how to fly.

Yup, heaven looks pretty damned ridiculous.

Fire!

A neighbor's garage burned down the other night around 11PM. We could see the raging fire from our livingroom window. Fortune smiled upon them and no one was hurt. I couldn't sleep that night. I tossed and turned and looked at the ceiling trying to figure out how I could protect my family from fire. I already have a smoke alarm in every room and a photo-electric flame detector (with a light) in the hallway and I test them often. We also have a carbon monoxide detector. Still though, a fire might block me from reaching the children because of the hallway layout. Suddenly it came to me - why can't I just go through the wall to get my children? Well, the next morning I went to Ace Hardware and talked with my hardware buddies about it and I walked out with a 13 pound mini-sledge. It will go right through drywall. I also bought a hundred dollar extension ladder. If the room is on fire I can jump out the window, grab the extension ladder, and be in the kid's room in under a minute.

I used to think it was weird for parents to sleep with their children, especially older children. Now I have a totally reversed opinion. If my children sleep with me tonight and a fire breaks out, I know where they are. They're right within reach and I can scoop all three of them up and be outside in seconds. Ain't nothing wrong with sleeping with your kids! Some psychologists say the kids might have future issues? I doubt it. One thing's for sure - they'll be alive to deal with those issues.

Do you have children? Test your smoke alarm this instant!

It's Thrilling To Say "President Obama"

Listening to the rah-rah attitude on inauguration day I was filled with an optimism I hadn't felt since before John Lennon died. Wait. Maybe not even then. Maybe that feeling goes all the way back to the optimism of the Kennedy presidency. I was 8 years old in 1963, that magic time before America's optimism was dashed by an assassin. I remember the intense sorrow felt by my parents and teachers, all the tears.

Amazingly, CBS Morning News first reported about Beatlemania on the morning of the day Kennedy was shot. A month after the assassination the Beatles scored their first #1 hit, 'I Want To Hold Your Hand,' and I was one of 74 million people on February 9 who watched the Beatles perform live on The Ed Sullivan Show. Were you?
As I got older I looked forward to each of John Lennon's solo releases. When he was murdered a part of me was murdered. "They" say that the day Buddy Holly died was the day the music died, but I have listened carefully to all of Buddy Holly's songs and John Lennon blows Buddy Holly out of the water (whatever that means). I've always felt that December 8, 1980, was the day I lost my faith in humanity, the day the music truly died. However, after watching Obama's inauguration, I'm grokking that I may have lost my faith way back in 1963.

Congratulations, President "No Drama" Obama, for making it all the way to the White House. I'm not sure how I feel about you risking the lives of your family to get there (and stay there) but I am glad that America finally has a truly intelligent president, ala Lincoln. Perhaps sanity will return to America. Perhaps the wars will end. Perhaps America will truly become again the home of the brave.

Who Am I To Make More Humans?

I am ashamed of myself for being so selfish to believe I had the right to create life. I didn't take the time to consider what life really is. Now I have three children that I love more than life and if anyone harmed them I'd, I'd..., but there is nothing I can do to prevent them from eventually dying. What was I thinking? How could I do this to someone I love?

As I type these words I hear my darling ten month old daughter coughing in her crib. We just laid her down. This afternoon she developed a fever of 100, she's breathing fast, and she has a runny nose. Google says it's probably something called RSV. I don't care what it's called. All I know is that every two weeks (especially since our five year old started kindergarten) one or more of our children are sick, and often the adults are too. There seems to be a virus waiting around every corner. Life isn't that fun right now. We stay healthy for a week or two and then all of us are sick again.

What bothers me most of all is that I know that each of my children will die, probably of old age (knock on wood), but they will die. Alone. Without me there to hold them. This tears me apart. Last night I slept with my middle child, three year old Pete. As he slept I held him and I could feel his new heart beating strongly, and I circled my thumb and pointer finger around his tiny wrist, and I thought about how innocent he is and I cried to think that my son will eventually die.

Since they did not ask to be born (I did not ask to be born either) I say they should not have to follow society's rules and become "responsible" adults and "contribute" to society. Pah! I now devote the rest of my life to enabling them to never have to work a day in their lives. They did not ask for this misery. I must die before them but I intend to do everything I can to make sure they do not have to work unless they wish to. It is my lapse of foresight that brought them into this world of wars and murder (same thing), heartbreak and tragedy, pollution and greed (same thing). I read a quote somewhere that said life is tragedy with momentary bursts of joy. My children are my "bursts of joy."

God Is The Ultimate Serial Killer

Is there a god? Well if there is he/she/it has has murdered more humans than all the serial killers in history have murdered, combined! Add up all the humans killed by other humans throughout history, include the war dead, and god has killed way way more than that number. Why? Well, duh! Because god LOVES US! God is the greatest serial killer of all time, even greater than George Bush.

Abortion kills unborn babies. That's imaginary god's ace up the sleeve. No serial killer can compete with abortion statistics. God wins hands down! Yay god!

I have had two abortions. I regret both of them of course, but I have finally forgiven myself. If I hadn't talked two wonderful people into aborting there might be an extra 12 year old and an extra 28 year old on the planet. I can't think about that too much. I miss them terribly.

I love my living children. Two toddler boys and an infant daughter. I am a very lucky human. I teach them to be considerate and polite to their fellow humans, but only to a certain extent. When they eventually ask me about god (and Santa Claus and the tooth fairy) I will tell them the truth. I will say, "Some people believe in those things but Daddy doesn't." Am I going to hell? Well, if there is a hell I sure hope I'm going there! I certainly don't want to have anything to do with a god who permits the murdering of innocent unborn children, or the gassing of four million children who died in the Holocaust, and allows all the innocent babies to die of AIDS every day, and looks the other way while children are raped and murdered. A god who can create an infinite universe could definitely step in and stop a Nazi from tearing an infant from her mother's arms and throwing it into a raging fire, don't you think?

What does one do in heaven? Sit there throughout eternity and watch as their descendants go through life after life (after life)? Isn't eternity forever? Isn't forever a really really long time? What if one of their grandchildren, or one of their great-great-great-great-great grandchildren, falls through the ice and can't find the opening again and realizes with terror that Mommy and Daddy can't save them and finally gives up and breathes in water and dies in convulsive spasms of agony? Let's not even mention house fires and car accidents. That's another rant. These horrible deaths happen every day down here on Earth. Why does their god let that happen? Because he decided it was time for them to join him? Jeez, you'd think he'd treat an innocent child a bit nicer, like letting them die in their sleep maybe. No, there can't be a god. I have absolutely no interest, zero, in going to this so-called heaven. No thank you. When I die, I will be recycled by the earth and so will you. If it turns out there's a god I will do everything I can to slap his face. I'm laughing now about that thought.

Oh please, you religious types, don't give me that "god has a plan," "god has a reason" bullshit. You make me sick.

Tomorrow Is Today's Baby

Copyright 11 July 08. Don't mess with my wordpuppy, heheh.

Marriage Is Stupid

Don't be fooled by love! Love is an illusion! It's all about making more humans. She has nice curves? He has a cute five o'clock shadow? Nope! It's all about making babies!

Go for it!

What Happened To Good Old Vermillion?

I moved to Vermillion, South Dakota, in late December of 1977. The university students were home for the holidays and the town seemed very small and slow paced. After Christmas all the students came back and the town became a busier place but still a small town. I left Vermillion in 1988 for fifteen years and returned in 2003. Vermillion had changed for the worse, all in the name of progress. Now the landfill competes with Spirit Mound to be the highest point on the northern horizon. Main Street and Cherry Street have become noon rush hour traffic jams. A Wal-Mart superstore has arrived and the city has honored it with its very own ridiculous traffic light and two strip malls. The once-quaint university is razing historic buildings, constructing new stupid looking mega-million dollar ones, and tearing out trees to build larger and larger parking lots. A large oil refining company is coming to a nearby town with the enthusiastic endorsement from those who will profit from it. Soon I will pack up my family and leave Verhundred forever. I am busy searching for another small college town that hasn’t caved to the pressure of progress and greed and pollution. Perhaps Missouri? Arkansas? Vermillion used to have a wonderful small town quality. Now it has become just another typical urban spawn. Vermillion, I henceforth will only call you Verhundred.

Cow Milk Is Creepy

Now that my family has been drinking strictly soymilk for four years it seems strange to me that I ever drank cow milk. We quit drinking cow milk years ago because of all the hormones and antibiotics and who knows what else is in there. My sons, 4 year old Sammy and 2 year old Pete, have never had a glass of cow milk.

Let's face it, cow milk is actually cow mother's milk. Cows normally eat grass, which is inedible to humans. Cow mother's milk is designed for cow babies, not human babies. The only mother's milk I want in my children is human mother's milk, preferably their actual mother's mother's milk.

How in the world did we start drinking animal mother's milk? Maybe some cave lady ran dry and noticed the domesticated wolf feeding her cubs in the corner of the cave and laid her infant down with the cubs. Who knows? It's creepy, mon!

Now it's a multi-trillion dollar operation. It does a body good? Hmm, when that much money is involved you can bet that the product ain't good for your baby.

I recently saw an Ovaltine commercial on that obnoxious moving picture box in the livingroom and those kids were yelling, "More Ovaltine, Mom!" and I got a craving for a big glass of ice cold milk with a tablespoon or four of Hershey's chocolate syrple (any Roger Miller fans out there?). That's when I realized how long it's been since I've actually tasted milk and now it's a blogpost.

It's just like all the other stuff that's force-fed to us. Somehow "they" came up with a forty hour workweek. What? Somehow "they" decided that we should all be driving cars and covering our planet with highways and parking lots. What? Forty thousand people die every year in America in car accidents and I'm upset about a mere three thousand dying every year in a useless war? Where's my perspective? And this computer in front of me makes me nervous. Listen to it humming and whirring. What kind of weird emissions am I breathing in? All this is future blog material. Stay tuned for more fun and games.

Last thing - soymilk ain't milk. It's a filtrate. It's like juice. Milk is a special word that should be used only for what a mother is amazingly capable of providing for her beautiful baby.

Nipples Really Have Only One Purpose

Why are nipples erogenous? It just seems creepy to me. Nipples are designed to deliver milk to the infant. (And why do humans drink cow milk? It's for calves! I drink soy milk.)

The whole sex drive thing is a scam. We "feel" physically attracted to someone but really it's just our sex drive trying to make a new human.

Many men find large breasts attractive but is it actually because large breasts imply that they can hold more milk than smaller breasts and therefore be more capable of feeding an infant? Or is it because certain men want to be babied? According to zoologist Desmond Morris, author of 'The Naked Ape,' breasts are designed to look like derrieres, and a naked derriere is designed to encourage the sex drive.

Sex is weird and the older I get the more I see it for what it truly is - simply an overly hyped mechanism to make more humans.

(But don't get too attached to your babies - America's most prolific serial killer, President George Bush, is on a roll.)

There's No Such Thing As Pollution

I do not care anymore about pollution. The landfills are full of disposable diapers and plastic water bottles? Good! Cigaret butts and trash line the streets? Good! Carbon dioxide filling the atmosphere? Yay! All this trash is just Mother Earth in a different form. So what? Mother Earth knows what she's doing.

I hope to be living when the earth decides it has had enough of humans. That will certainly be exciting. Woo hoo!

South Dakota Contributes To Inhumanity

South Dakota murdered a murderer July 11, 2007. Sickening. Now he's escaped prison!

Meanwhile, George Bush, America's most prolific serial killer, continues his bloody spree. Well, let's see if he can get my boys to enlist. Ain't a'gonna happen, Mr. President. I served proudly, my father served proudly, and I am proud of our troops, but I won't allow my sons to die meaningless deaths. Bring the troops home!

My List Of Heroes Doesn't Include George Bush

My sons are my heroes. I strive to be as brave as they are.

Sammy singing his own song: http://youtube.com/watch?v=iFQ5HSxxFUA

Petey determined to learn words: http://youtube.com/watch?v=yH82MoBsMhQ

I am also very proud of Sean Penn: http://youtube.com/watch?v=f6_lx5ejhWY&mode=related&search=

I am ashamed of George Bush. Our military has become a police force for the rich. We are using our brave and honorable military troops to steal oil.

My sons may become soldiers, as I was, as their grandfathers were, but they will not fight for corporate interests. I will ensure that, even if it means leaving the USA.

Abortion Is The Greatest Tragedy Of Humanity

Today South Dakota votes... Come on, South Dakota! Do the right thing! Save the unborn!

I am completely against any killing of human beings.

I am against capital punishment. We have killed innocents.

I am against abortion. Life begins at conception. Abortion is murder. I have had two abortions. I intensely regret both, and I also forgive myself and their mothers.

I do not believe there is a god. I don't care what you believe.

Lies We Tell Our Children

Why do we teach our babies that animals can talk human talk? Why do we want our children to be convinced that there is a Santa Claus and a tooth fairy? Why do we let children believe in trains and giant red dogs that think and talk like humans? I am not comfortable lying to my children.

Perhaps society wants its children to think that farm animals are cute and cuddly and can sing and dance because society wants to conceal the grim reality of death on the farm. Most farm animals are raised to be slaughtered in high-speed killing factories which contaminate the meat with e. coli. Maybe they should have tours for kindergardeners at those slaughterhouses. I'm not a vegan but I haven't eaten beef in years.

And teaching children to believe in Santa sure is a convenient way for religious people to convince them that there is also a god. Get them while they're young, very young, and impressionable.

I'm not trying to take away the joys of childhood. Pretending is fun. I wonder how much is really lost of a child's trust in his parents when he realizes that he's been lied to all those years, and how much active life-learning time has been lost spent believing that Santa exists?

Do You Wash Your Spatula After You Flip The Burger? I Do!

Wake up, parents! Protect your children from horrible sickness and possible death! I'm talking about that frightening E. coli O157:H7. It's killing children across the nation. It only takes a couple of the bacteria, a quantity so small you cannot see it, to sicken you. We don't eat beef in our house - it's simply too scarey. We mainly eat turkey and fish. I always wash the spatula in between burger flips. I always wash the meat thermometer in between test pokes. I spray 10% bleach solution all around the kitchen and let it air dry every day. I have two baby boys - a 3 yr old and a 1 yr old. My youngest caught the rotavirus 3 months ago and we spent two nights in the hospital holding him while he was on continuous IV and suffering agonizing cramps and diarrhea every 15 minutes. I do not intend to have that happen again. Since that frightening ordeal, I have done a lot of research and thought many thoughts. Many children have died from rotavirus, e. coli, shigella, and other horrible invisibles. It's a horrible death. Please, please take your kitchen hygiene up to a higher level. I also think that the beef industry controls the media. They don't want us to know how many people are actually getting sick. Check it out: http://www.safetables.org/Victim_Support/victim_stories.html

George W. Bush Is A Serial Killer

As President Bush continues his serial killing, life goes on for the living, often in mundane yet comforting ways. I am the father of a beautiful three year old boy and a beautiful one year old boy and I've been actively encouraging my oldest to use the toilet. So instead of my usual quiet pee just above the water line in the toilet which I've practiced to perfection for 30 years, I have been peeing directly into the toilet lately so he can hear me from wherever he's playing, hoping to remind him that Daddy uses a toilet instead of a diaper (and that Daddy hasn't disappeared from his universe). This bothers me a bit because I can often feel microscopic droplets on my legs. It depends on how many Newcastle Brown Ales I've had. Newcastles often transport a person to hypersensitivity about all things mental and physical. I am seriously considering abandoning this peeing silliness. Why do we teach our boy toddlers to pee standing up? Who taught me to teach him to pee standing up? My dad and mom? Who taught them? Their parents? Does this go all the way back to Adam and Eve? And who taught them? God? And who taught God? Oh, excuse me - God always was. Right. Sure he was. How convenient for you believers. Well, teaching a toddler to pee standing up is ridiculous! Let's teach them to sit down on the toilet and pee. Aiming a peeing penis requires skill, concentration, and the ability to accurately predict trajectory, much like aiming a rocket at the moon. When he's older and more in control of small motor muscles he can make the switch. Yesterday I went over to my good friend Leo's house for a couple of Newcastles and I used his bathroom (in 2 beers = out 6) and what did I do? Peed directly, and loudly, into his toilet! After I wiped the rim of his toilet with toilet paper, which I always do anyway, I went back to his comfy livingroom and was compelled to explain why I was so loud. Meanwhile, valiant soldiers are dying in Iraq as I type these inconsequential words.

Bring Our Troops Home!

The presidency is the perfect front for a serial killer. I know I'm being dramatic, but what if...? I suppose it's impossible, but it sure is weird how strange he is. One thing is for sure - our valiant soldiers are dying unnecessarily. The people that voted for him should be feeling some shame, too. Why are we putting up with this??? Is America blind???

Iraq didn't have anything to do with 9/11. Why is Osama still free? What's really going on? I shouldn't have to think these thoughts.

I have a two year old toddler and a six week old infant. I served in the military. The military is there to protect our country, not chase oil. I cannot lose my children for oil. Go Cindy!