Germs and hate mail

Home from work today with that virus/cold thing mentioned below. I slept all day. I mean, we're talking all day. Then we had a real shaker when I was still in gradual wake-up mode. Enough of a shaker to send Nic the cat fleeing in terror for the bathroom. For whatever reason the tub functions as his cat bomb shelter.

So I have little to report right now. Big headache. One of my New Zealand friends, however, sent me a copy of a letter to the editor from this morning's NZ paper (no online link) and it's worth sharing:

US heads for fall
The result of the Jackson trial is further proof that the United States is a nation in decay. If Jackson were a dog in North Canterbury he would be put down. His tastes are bizarre and his demeanor is weird enough to be described as obscene. Yet he walks free.

Only in America could this happen.

This country, in its death throes--brought on faster by electing a president who is barely literate and who has all the charm of a dead ferret--spirals downwards daily. In the United States corruption rules, justice is measured in plea bargaining and Hollywood is where the gods live. This nation that now sees its inevitable fate has turned to Christianity, hoping that God is the way to salvation. Consequently, it has managed to turn Christianity into a freak show controlled by greedy showmen robbing gullible widows of their mite.

North America's turn as the leader of the planet will end in the next 10 years or so, when it will find itself a distant third to China and Europe in world leadership. We should look forward to its demise for the sakes of all our children.
Don Hutchings

I love that "all the charm of a dead ferret" line. Though I suspect dead ferrets may be more charming than living ones. (My apologies to ferret lovers out there. My experience with them has been a little too rodent-ish to endear me to the species.)