By DEACON MIKE MANNO, JD
I don’t share too many personal stories, but here is one that I posted on Facebook. It’s about a little kitten that has come into my life. Now I’m not really a cat guy. In fact, all my life I’ve been a dog guy. Oftentimes having two at the same time.
My most recent four-legged friend is a rescue by the name of Buster, whose companion, Bo, crossed over the Rainbow Bridge a few years ago. Buster is fourteen and in good health, but slowing down a bit.
I’ve had a Bailey and a Bentley, as well as a Roxie. My most memorable dog was Ginger, who hung around me during my grade school years. I’ve also had a Paisan (Italian for buddy), and the earliest dog I remember I named Meat Ball.
But a couple of months ago my wife found a small litter of kittens — only about a week old — abandoned in our front flower garden. We took them to our vet but, unfortunately, only one survived. Since I’d never had a cat before this was a new experience, but after bottle-feeding this little kitty for five weeks, we kind of bonded.
I named her Gilligan after Luanne had to correct me several times for saying “good doggie.” I then started to call her “little buddy,” which reminded me of the Skipper and, well, the rest you know. She’s about six months, cute as a baby kangaroo, stubborn as a mule, and can be, but not often, as cuddly as a koala bear.
Fortunately, she allows us to stay but otherwise she has the run of the house. She’s fallen into the toilet twice, the garbage numerous times, and found herself inside the refrigerator once and will probably do it all again.
Over Christmas, we dared not to put up a tree since she had climbed all over the plants Luanne brought in for the winter. We had to put them in the laundry room until spring. A couple of years ago when the Late Bo was blind we went several years without a tree, since we didn’t want to move the furniture to accommodate it because poor Bo would have had a hard time navigating the house. So that didn’t bother us too much.
There was also no Advent wreath this year. If the kitten could fall into the toilet, we were sure she’d start herself and the house on fire if we had burning candles. However, she didn’t do too badly around the Nativity set — she managed to weave between the characters without too much damage. At least nothing got permanently hurt and the Baby Jesus survived.
Now cats are not like dogs. A puppy will eventually understand the word “no.” A cat takes it as a challenge. When the little thing first came to us, I went to the Internet to learn a little bit about cats and how to care for them. Now my Facebook page is filled with ads for cat toys and cat videos. And, forgive me Buster, but I got Christmas gifts for Luanne all with a kitten theme. I know, she’s won me over.
I read recently that dogs have masters but cats have staff. That’s true; our house has truly become Gilligan’s Island.
They’re all God’s creatures and deserve to be loved.
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Speaking of Facebook . . . yes, we were. A few paragraphs up, that’s how the cat story started. Anyway, I found something on Facebook that may explain why there are so very few Republicans who disapprove of Mr. Trump’s style. This comes from Marshall Kamena, a conservative Democrat, who is mayor of Livermore, Calif. He wrote the following, which was based on a column that appeared in Townhall:
“My Leftist friends…constantly ask me if I’m not bothered by Donald Trump’s lack of decorum. They ask if I don’t think his tweets are ‘beneath the dignity of the office.’
“Here’s my answer: We Right-thinking people have tried dignity. There could not have been a man of more quiet dignity than George W. Bush as he suffered the outrageous lies and politically motivated hatreds that undermined his presidency.
“We tried statesmanship. Could there be another human being on this Earth who so desperately prized ‘collegiality’ as John McCain?
“We tried propriety — has there been a nicer human being ever than Mitt Romney?
“And the results were always the same. This is because, while we were playing by the rules of dignity, collegiality, and propriety, the Left has been, for the past 60 years, engaged in a knife fight where the only rules are those of Saul Alinsky and the Chicago mob.
“I don’t find anything ‘dignified,’ ‘collegial,’ or ‘proper’ about Barack Obama’s lying about what went down on the streets of Ferguson in order to ramp up racial hatreds. . . .
“I don’t see anything ‘dignified’ in lying about the deaths of four Americans in Benghazi and imprisoning an innocent filmmaker to cover your tracks.
“I don’t see anything ‘statesman-like’ in weaponizing the IRS to be used to destroy your political opponents and any dissent.
“Yes, Obama was ‘articulate’ and ‘polished’ but in no way was he in the least bit ‘dignified,’ ‘collegial,’ or ‘proper.’
“The Left has been engaged in a war against America since the rise of the Children of the ’60s. To them, it has been an all-out war where nothing is held sacred and nothing is seen as beyond the pale. It has been a war they’ve fought with violence, the threat of violence, demagoguery, and lies from day one….
“The problem is that, through these years, the Left has been the only side fighting this war. While the Left has been taking a knife to anyone who stands in their way, the Right has continued to act with dignity, collegiality, and propriety.
“With Donald Trump, this all has come to an end. Donald Trump is America’s first wartime president in the Culture War.
“During wartime, things like ‘dignity’ and ‘collegiality’ simply aren’t the most essential qualities one looks for in their warriors. Ulysses Grant was a drunk whose behavior in peacetime might well have seen him drummed out of the Army for conduct unbecoming.
“Had Abraham Lincoln applied the peacetime rules of propriety and booted Grant, the Democrats might well still be holding their slaves today. Lincoln rightly recognized that ‘I cannot spare this man. He fights.’
“General George Patton was a vulgar-talking &%#. In peacetime, this might have seen him stripped of rank. But, had Franklin Roosevelt applied the normal rules of decorum, Hitler and the Socialists would barely be five decades into their thousand-year Reich….
“[I]t’s wonderful to see that not only is Trump fighting, he’s defeating the Left using their own tactics. That book is Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals — a book so essential to the Liberals’ war against America that it is and was the playbook for the entire Obama administration and the subject of Hillary Clinton’s senior thesis.
“It is a book of such pure evil that, just as the rest of us would dedicate our book to those we most love or those to whom we are most indebted, Alinsky dedicated his book to Lucifer.
“Trump’s tweets may seem rash and unconsidered but, in reality, he is doing exactly what Alinsky suggested his followers do. First, instead of going after ‘the fake media’….Trump isolated CNN. He made it personal.
“Then, just as Alinsky suggests, he employs ridicule which Alinsky described as ‘the most powerful weapon of all.’ Most importantly, Trump’s tweets have put CNN in an untenable and unwinnable position….
“This leaves them with only two choices. They can either ‘go high’…and begin to honestly and accurately report the news or they can double-down on their usual tactics and hope to defeat Trump with twice their usual hysteria and demagoguery. The problem for CNN (et al.) with the former is that, if they were to start honestly reporting the news, that would be the end of the Democratic Party they serve….
“Imagine if they had honestly and accurately conveyed the evils of the Obama administration’s weaponizing of the IRS…or his running of guns to the Mexican cartels or the truth about the murder of Ambassador Christopher Stevens and the Obama administration’s cover-up. . . .
“[D]o I wish we lived in a time when our president could be ‘collegial’ and ‘dignified’ and ‘proper’? Of course I do.
“These aren’t those times. This is war. And it’s a war that the Left has been fighting without opposition for the past 50 years.
“So, say anything you want about this president — I get it — he can be vulgar, he can be crude, he can be undignified at times. I don’t care. I can’t spare this man. He fights for America!”
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One final personal note. A few months ago (July 27) I wrote about Jeri, who overcame drugs and a hideous lifestyle and cleaned up her act only to lose a big promotion. Unbowed, she forged ahead with the help of the God she grew to know and the faith He gave her in herself.
Just before Christmas her company called her. Another of its venues had the job she wanted along with a big raise. She started January 6. God is good to those who have faith.
(Mike can be reached at: Deacon
Mike@q.com.)
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