Furry Friday: birds and kittens galore

Story:  Work is still hectic, but there are still moments of entertainment.   This week, I was hauling an armload of printer toner cartridges downstairs to our storage cabinet.  I walked past a volunteer who was working with a very skittish dog.  I tried to walk slowly and quietly past them.  I made a small amount of noise while I opened the cabinets and put the toner boxes on the shelves.  I locked up the shelves again and started walking back upstairs.  The dog was even more frightened of me by now.  This time I didn't walk past.

Animals have the right of way at AHS.  I stopped and waited.  The volunteer led the dog into a nearby closet to let me pass.  She explained, "Thanks, she's just really frightened of men."  I walked past them and continued on with my day.  AHS has an "Ad Prep" (adoption preparation) program for dogs that are fearful, trying to get them more comfortable around people.  These dogs have their cage card labeled with this information, along with advice that they not enter homes with small children (who scream and lurch about suddenly, stressing the dog).  It's good to know that people work with the animals on their problem areas, but it does leave one wondering about the life story that created such a fearful stereotype of men.

Animals:  Speaking of fearful, Mufasa spent his first few days hiding inside a paper bag in his cage.  He has since started spending time at the front, looking around (with wide eyes) at all the activity around him.  He's actually pretty friendly once he calms down a bit.  He'll purr lightly and rub up against my hand.

The photo doesn't really capture his physical presence.  In person, he looks almost like a solid black cat, but then his face and lower (belly) half of his body shows some traditional grey striping.  He's an older male with longish hair, so he's spending more time than many other cats (and large number of kittens) on the adoption floor waiting for a new owner.  He's definitely worth a look.  AHS has extended their "Double The Love" program to the end of October that allows you to get an older cat free if you adopt a kitten the same day.  If you find a calm kitten, they might make a good pair for a new home.

I don't usually spend time with the birds, but we have a lot of them this week and so I visited yesterday to introduce myself to them.  There are lots of paired parakeets, but Vanilla is the one who made an impression on me.

She (?) kept an eye on me the whole time I was in the room.  We cooed at each other for a few minutes before I wandered to other cages.  She kept walking along her wooden bar to get closer to me, whichever side of the room I was at.  She's one of the few birds alone in her cage, so I think she really wants some company.  If you enjoy the sounds of dove cooing, come visit her and chat for a while.  She might convince you to give her a new home.

As of this writing, both Mufasa and Vanilla are available for visitation and adoption at our Golden Valley facility.

How you can help:  Looking to recycle your plastic bags from the grocery store?  Consider saving them and donating them to your local animal shelter instead.  Anyone who has the duty of walking dogs will know just how helpful it is to have these plastic bags around for cleaning up doggy doo from the grassy lawn.  Ask if your shelter collects them.  If they do, then give the bags an opportunity for reuse.

money: told ya so

I suggested back in February that people endure this economic downturn by buying stuff (durable, useful stuff) because the value of dollars would deteriorate to useless levels. Money is supposed to be useful only as a trade medium. Money doesn't produce anything. Money is not wealth. "Stuff" is wealth. Herds of cattle are wealth. Factory buildings are wealth. Loyal employees are wealth. Farmland is wealth. Education and skill training are wealth. Hammers, axes, and shovels are wealth.

People succumbed to thinking that pieces of paper are wealth. Whether dollars or stocks or bonds, people thought that collecting them and trading them made them wealthy. I think of them all as merely baseball trading cards. They're sexy items to own only because other people think they're sexy. If they lose the luster of... well, lust... then of what use are these pieces of paper?

Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value ---- zero.
- Voltaire (1694-1778)

Today is a day of interesting news. We bomb the moon (I'm still waiting for data). Obama wins the Nobel Peace Prize (I think it's premature but an interesting experiment in encouragement). And the world begins moving away from the US Dollar.  Wait, what?

According to an article at The Independent website, most of the world's energy-relevant nations appear ready to dump the US Dollar as the tool for valuing oil. My favorite take on this whole process is one of the comments at the Oil Drum article:

Paper currencies are ephemeral tokens clumsily applied to the true values (hard resources, ideas and actions) which really improve the human condition. Who cares if the dollar devalues to nothing or about any other paper currency? Everyone should know that paper currencies are transient hot potatoes - you never want to hold them over long periods of time or you will be burned. Paper monies have only momentary utility enabling more efficient transactions than barter. Paper monies will always have close to zero long term value. In order to facilitate their role as transactional tokens it is only important that paper currencies devalue to zero relatively slowly.

Like I said, buy stuff. Real stuff is wealth.  Paper has been losing its usefulness for years.

I need to start taking pictures again. Photos of the empty railroad cars that are piling up again at the nearby railyard. Photos of the series of empty storefronts at local malls and shopping centers. One person I know (foeclan) actually begins a new job in a few days. I know of many other people who are have gotten laid off in recent weeks and months. One person (mnteejay )received notice that in January his job will be cut to 8 hours per week. Seriously, just 8 hours.

While the US Dollar does still have value today, "the writing is on the wall" as the saying goes. I don't for one moment believe in the supposed signs of an economic turnaround. There are two problems happening right now. One is the exponential growth of debt that is required for our financial system to operate. The solution is to return to a currency with a fixed real-world value, like a gold standard that the Middle East is creating now. The other problem is energy. Our economy requires vast quantities of energy, and I see no reliable source of such energy available today.

I think this will be the perpetual recession; I believe that it will continue until either the oil finally runs out (and we crash) or we get nuclear fusion to work (which allows us to continue using the boneheaded exponential growth model).  My hope is that we see the creation of actual, sustainable economies and finances.  That would be fun.  But too many people still subscribe to the old thinking, so we'll have to wait for either the oil or the fusion to happen instead.