It Chapter 2

The leper, played by Javier Botet returns! Now it's decked out in a lab coat and tie. It's pointing at the projector screen, portraying slices from a cadaver being peeled away, layer by gruesome layer. "Looks like cancer to me Eddieeeee!"

I can see why Pennywise prefers children over adults. True, having tie-wearing demons from the Internal Revenue Service flying overhead while a giant ogre points at you while laughing the word foreclosure!!! is just as terrifying as anything that scares children. But it's not the same.

WTF YouTube?!!

I did not subscribe to Pewdipie, or this anime channel (4got t name) and several others. But there they were in my sub feed. Are these honest glitches or is someone employing bots? Eh. I'm not actually upset as long as the ones I did sub to don't spontaneously unsub.

Explanations for cats- creationism vs reality.

Why are cats so adorable? Supposedly God made them for our benefit. Their fur is nice and soft for petting, which lowers our blood pressure. They're made to be affectionate companions for us, uplifting our spirits. And playful kittens fill our days with smiles and laughter.

So why the hell do they have sharp razor blades at the end of each digit? They're affectionate only when they feel like it. The rest of the time they don't give a damn about us. And the games kittens play consist entirely of pretending to kill each other. The more they enjoy chasing, pouncing, biting and fake-disembowelling each other the better killers they'll be as adults. That's what they're obsessed with- Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Seriously God, (or Yahweh, Jehovah, Vishnu, Hutta Moomoo or...) WTF??

The real explanation is far more sensible, lacking any of those eternally-unanswerable mysteries. It's an awe-inspiring story, an epic tale of survival. That's what it is to me. Whereas several of the large felines are apex predators the ancestors of our cats were both predators and prey, with the threat of violent death always near. The granaries built by our farming ancestors greatly alleviated the struggle for food, the grain storages being magnets for rodents. Those humans that saw the value of these furry non-baby-eating killers in turn repelled larger predators, increasing their chances for life. Human villages provided havens for them, and they in turn evolved and adapted to become closer to us, then more ideal as members of human families.

There is much, much more to this story, but I'll close with my observation that explanations based on scientific research, discoveries made through endless trial and error are more enriching for our minds than anything religious story tellers can make up. I love my feline family with all my heart, with full appreciation for how they came to be.

The baggage with "Carrie," novel by Stephen King

Forget it. I need to stop reading Carrie by Stephen King (his first novel, 1974). The goddamn memories keep flooding back. Do I really have PTSD from my middle-school years, when I was beaten and humiliated almost daily? I know bullying carves deep scars that last a lifetime but this was 40 years ago!!! And I wasn't a menstruating girl like Carrie. That part doesn't matter; them ganging up on me with taunts, threats and the occasional punching, kicking....

It ends with Carrie White's revenge, right? Over half the student body burning to death. Sounds kinda like my Armageddon fantasies, with Jehovah God striking them down. I actually prayed for Him to let me watch. Either up close or from a distance through visions. I do NOT want to relive those gleeful fantasies.

And religion: Carrie's mother being at the extreme end of abusive fundamentalism, putting her daughter through hell. If you think King's unrealistic in stretching that hysterical religiosity unrealisticly, you are so wrong. I am grateful I wasn't one of the millions of children terrified their whole live by such abuse. - "To Train Up A Child" by Michael and Debi Pearl, a book extoling the virtue of beating children.

I love my cats. Dude wanting to stuff himself into the leg of one of my pants, Ladybug so playful... I feel so much better now.

Mesozoic allergy

I'm not allergic to cats, dogs, birds, llamas or any other animal except one: pterodactyls. I don't know why my immune system would get upset over flying reptiles that've been nonexistent for 65 million years. Strange.

Ouroboros

One of the most ancient symbols is the Ouroboros. A circle of a snake eating its own tail, signifying the process of destruction and renewal, of the yearly cycle of seasons, of the samsara of endlessly reincarnating. Life and death.

When I look at the Ouroboros symbol all I see is an idiot reptile taking itself out of the gene pool.

non-commercialized Journalism

What we read in the news cannot be disconnected from the commercial sponsors that make news reporting possible. it takes a lot of money. A random, non-serious thought occurred to me: Have Reuters, API and the others receive their financial support from an impartial, objective federal government administration. Now let the derisive laughter die down a bit. Then the same inquisitive group of neurons put forth: What of history textbooks? The ones that are closest to being the impartial, objective sources of information we need for a useful,comprehensive & accurate body of knowledge necessary  to understand the past? How do they happen? Hmm... Journalism is the documentation of history, right?

I haven't thought any of this through so it would surprise me if there weren't any big gaping holes in my logic. But I felt like I just had to tell the interwebz about it.