Susie Duncan Sexton's Blog, page 7

#TryEmpathy

Hopefully, all humans - all voters - can be sympathetic and empathetic about the "physical condition" of other members of humanity. BTW who DOESN'T feel like fainting these days?!?

Seems like folks have forgotten how to relate, and the pundits might try shutting the hell up! Geesh! Feel better, Hillary. Your stamina is amazing!

Maybe campaign reform should include stopping the mania of tearing about from state to state and rally to rally ad infinitum. Totally ridiculous to deplete energy convincing people who should already be intelligent to vote for the best candidate.



I know that I wish to vent so much, and tell it like I think it is! I feel healthier when I do, but people are so anal retentive and guarded and stubborn and often contrary and self-serving that I could spit. (Funny, how pets help with that frustration; they are better than medicine!)

I am a mess...about 20 complaints I have...all over my little body (I quote Jonathan Winters). I am a cadaver. I am Tales from the Crypt, and my house is upside down and only my cats and dogs understand my a$$. They depend on me and know I exist, therefore I appreciate their keen judgment.



(The violence of this world starts in the oceans and on the continents and in the skies. No more slaughter ever. A new world can happen. Reverence for LIFE! Recognize the importance of all species! A message from our sponsors...)

Tired of "feeling" like this; only the election drama keeps me percolating.

I have known so many Donald Trumps - as in ALL BABY BOOMER "BOYS" I ever tried to talk to in my life. I want the lady to win so that ladies emerge as actual real people before I die. My only request!

And if any of YOU feel like fainting? Sit down, watch TV, take a nap, pet a dog, feed a cat, and remember we are all living creatures, poking about here on this big blue marble for only a brief spell and doing the best we can to make some itty bitty difference.

#TryEmpathy.



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Read about movies and nostalgia, animal issues and sociopolitical concerns all discussed in my book Secrets of an Old Typewriter and its follow-up Misunderstood Gargoyles and Overrated Angels - print and ebook versions of both are available on Amazon (click the title).

The books are also carried by these fine retailers: Ann Arbor's Bookbound and Common Language; Columbia City's Whitley County Historical Museum; and Fort Wayne's The Bookmark.

And you can download from iTunes.

Meet other like-minded souls at my facebook fan page

Visit my author website at www.susieduncansexton.com

Join a great group of animal advocates Squawk Back: Helping animals when others can't ... Or Won't

Signed: Ms. Lonelyhearts

Why do aging ex-marines wish to be my friends on Facebook? Do we have love of animals in common? Mutual Facebook pals? Nope.

These blokes are always "widowed" or "divorced," so I may still have my charms when all is said and done? What fabulous news ... I guess? Still a mystery.

And maybe the term is widower-ed? Perhaps a WAC or WAVE is/are interested in friendship? I have no idea, but I have a string of 'em! Total oddness. I do not count war as one of my interests or hobbies. I think they want to recruit me - like G.I. JANE - and I am way too fatigued! Pardon the pun.



Maybe the armed services retiree should at least have a pic of himself or herself with a dog or cat or pet cow? Then I might "bite" so to speak? Animal people are the best; fake animal people I ain't so sure what their motivations might be? Ah, Facebook games! ;)

So, a word of advice, instead of making half-baked overtures in the Facebook "inbox"? Go help our animal friends - share, care, adopt, foster, donate. Think about something other than self. THAT is what some of us were put on earth to do.



No wonder I never paint my nails nor bleach nor dye my hair nor wear high heels ... nor buy new houses ... nor care about cars ... nor travel. THIS is a thing lots of us do - thing one AND thing two: rescue. And give a damn. The only way to live. I swear by it! Sorry for boasting. Forgive me!

Ah, well? Anybody else face this dilemma...? Signed: Ms. Lonelyhearts



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Read about movies and nostalgia, animal issues and sociopolitical concerns all discussed in my book Secrets of an Old Typewriter and its follow-up Misunderstood Gargoyles and Overrated Angels - print and ebook versions of both are available on Amazon (click the title).

The books are also carried by these fine retailers: Ann Arbor's Bookbound and Common Language; Columbia City's Whitley County Historical Museum; and Fort Wayne's The Bookmark.

And you can download from iTunes.

Meet other like-minded souls at my facebook fan page

Visit my author website at www.susieduncansexton.com

Join a great group of animal advocates Squawk Back: Helping animals when others can't ... Or Won't

Still going strong…with one size 11 foot and one size 9 1/2

Beth Kennedy, inspired and prolific author of the clever and kindhearted blog I didn't have my glasses on, wrote these two fabulous posts this week, reminding me how much of a kindred spirit she really is. Enjoy learning about the word "nelipot" here and here.

I was born a nelipot, and, condescendingly, a podiatrist foot doctor once informed me that I would give that up one day. Bullsh!t. Still going strong…with one size 11 foot and one size 9 1/2.



Thanks, Beth, for the knowledge of who and what I truly am. I have a group at last?

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And BONUS! Enjoy this lovely coverage from Carmel, Indiana, of the continuing progress on Columbia City's Blue Bell Lofts, in the former Blue Bell plant my father once managed.





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Read about movies and nostalgia, animal issues and sociopolitical concerns all discussed in my book Secrets of an Old Typewriter and its follow-up Misunderstood Gargoyles and Overrated Angels - print and ebook versions of both are available on Amazon (click the title).

The books are also carried by these fine retailers: Ann Arbor's Bookbound and Common Language; Columbia City's Whitley County Historical Museum; and Fort Wayne's The Bookmark.

And you can download from iTunes.

Meet other like-minded souls at my facebook fan page

Visit my author website at www.susieduncansexton.com

Join a great group of animal advocates Squawk Back: Helping animals when others can't ... Or Won't

If there must constantly be LABELS?

[Rumpydog is an inspiration. Read the latest piece which prompted the following comment by yours truly...]

Thanks for this statement, so perfectly expressed. My husband is the cat lover; I am only a close second. Not sure he wants other males to know that he is - he is not all the way trained! Ha!

I am so cattish now that I cannot live without my "kids," and I realize how special all cats are and can be with a bit of attention from somebody somewhere. Rumpydog's cautionary words are important, so I am sharing!



Want a cooperative house guest for 10 to 20 years? Adopt a kitty. They receive the wrong press. They are as capable of fidelity and respect extended to the human animal as dogs are. It becomes a circle of precious love.

"Mammals can peacefully co-exist," can tolerate birds and insects and reptiles and amphibians, and can simply observe such from afar via a sunny window. Problem solved!

ALL life matters. Swaggering males are, however, an abomination and must adjust. My only prayer. And "crazy cat ladies" are angels in disguise ... a much more accurate LABEL if there must constantly be LABELS?


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Read about movies and nostalgia, animal issues and sociopolitical concerns all discussed in my book Secrets of an Old Typewriter and its follow-up Misunderstood Gargoyles and Overrated Angels - print and ebook versions of both are available on Amazon (click the title).

The books are also carried by these fine retailers: Ann Arbor's Bookbound and Common Language; Columbia City's Whitley County Historical Museum; and Fort Wayne's The Bookmark.

And you can download from iTunes.

Meet other like-minded souls at my facebook fan page

Visit my author website at www.susieduncansexton.com

Join a great group of animal advocates Squawk Back: Helping animals when others can't ... Or Won't

Mike Pence, you are no poet!

HOLY MOSES...Mike Pence, you are NO poet: "In our state, we coined a phrase, 'Good fences make good neighbors!'"

Guess what? Robert Frost just called and owns that sentence and wants it back to complete his famous poem "Mending Wall"! Read it for the true meaning if for no other reason?

Your defense of the Donald makes me constantly giggle...geesh? CNN morning show hosts must still be laughing?



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From Wikipedia...

"Mending Wall" is a poem by the twentieth century American poet Robert Frost (1874–1963). It opens Frost's second collection of poetry, North of Boston, published in 1914 by David Nutt, and it has become "one of the most anthologized and analyzed poems in modern literature".

Like many of the poems in North of Boston, "Mending Wall" narrates a story drawn from rural New England. The narrator, a New England farmer, contacts his neighbor in the Spring to rebuild the stone wall between their two farms. As the men work, the narrator questions the purpose of a wall "where it is we do not need the wall". He notes twice in the poem that "something there is that doesn’t love a wall", but his neighbor replies twice with the proverb, "Good fences make good neighbors".



Despite its simple, almost folksy language, "Mending Wall" is a complex poem with several themes, beginning with human fellowship, which Frost first dealt with in his poem "A Tuft of Flowers" in his first collection of poems, A Boy's Will. Unlike the earlier poem which explores the bond between men, "Mending Wall" deals with the distances and tensions between men. The poem explores the contradictions in life and humanity, including the contradictions within each person, as man "makes boundaries and he breaks boundaries". The poem also explores the role of boundaries in human society as mending the wall serves both to separate and to join the two neighbors, another contradiction. "Mending Wall" also plays with the theme of seasons as recurring cycles in life, and contrasts those cycles with both physical and language parallelism as the men walk along the wall, each to a side, and their language stays each to a side. Then, in "Mending Wall", Frost meditates on the role of language as a kind of wall that both joins and separates people. Finally, Frost explores the theme of mischief and humor in "Mending Wall", as the narrator says halfway through the poem, "Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder/If I could put a notion in his head". Mending the wall is a game for the narrator, though in contrast, the neighbor seems quite serious about the work.

Yup.



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Mending Wall
Robert Frost, 1874 - 1963

Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
‘Stay where you are until our backs are turned!'
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of outdoor game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, ‘Good fences make good neighbors.'
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
'Why do they make good neighbors? Isn’t it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I’d ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That wants it down.' I could say ‘Elves’ to him,
But it’s not elves exactly, and I’d rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father’s saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, ‘Good fences make good neighbors.'

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Read about movies and nostalgia, animal issues and sociopolitical concerns all discussed in my book Secrets of an Old Typewriter and its follow-up Misunderstood Gargoyles and Overrated Angels - print and ebook versions of both are available on Amazon (click the title).

The books are also carried by these fine retailers: Ann Arbor's Bookbound and Common Language; Columbia City's Whitley County Historical Museum; and Fort Wayne's The Bookmark.

And you can download from iTunes.

Meet other like-minded souls at my facebook fan page

Visit my author website at www.susieduncansexton.com

Join a great group of animal advocates Squawk Back: Helping animals when others can't ... Or Won't

How about you?

I do not fit into a demographic, and I wish the demographic-ists would stop pigeonholing all of us all the time. 'Deed i do - how 'bout you?

Hey, my dad could have bought the house next door for four grand back in the Forties. IF HE HAD, my husband could live there and so could my books. Is that my regret? That "Daddy" did not buy the house next door to this house...the answer to all of my problems. LOL. ROFL. LMBO. Etc.

And, furthermore, I dislike the word "partner" because I have lived with a cowboy wannabe, and he uses that word. As an individual, I dislike certain words instinctively and with a passion. Aha! I can be passionate? I truly detest DEMOGRAPHIC. The world is too full of labels and groupthink for me. I like a solitary soul - a FRIENDLY solitary soul. That is the best.



(Sidebar: Speaking of John Wayne, I can't believe this, but I watched CHISUM last night on my cowboy Christian channel here in small-town America. I LOVED it. WTF?! The Duke, Forrest Tucker. One of John Wayne's few "historical films," about letting us save New Mexico with the aid of a darling looking Billy the Kid??? And Hoosier author Lew Wallace - BEN-HUR - mentioned at the happy ending? And the Duke was dear to Mexicans and Native Americans? Quite a quirky movie, which I loved? Tucker was more divine as a believable villain than Gene Hackman. In fact, I saw Tucker in person years ago in THE MUSIC MAN, and he was AUNTIE MAME's Southern husband? Back to our regularly scheduled programming ...)



Thanks to "Rumpydog" for capturing this exquisite and sharp take on the notion that cruelty and marginalization often begins within the very group being mistreated: "Women Shaming Other Women? Shame on You!"

So important. So identifiable. And, as Madeleine Albright stated during a panel discussion on C-Span on Sunday, IF ONE THINKS ALL WOMEN ARE BEYOND REPROACH, ONE HAS FORGOTTEN ALL ABOUT HIGH SCHOOL! My sentiments exactly, and never forget the mean girls. They are out there - even the title of a film. You know what? They are a THIRD gender = mean girls, actually.



Animals? THOSE are my best friends, especially toward the end of my life. Just wishing I had realized that earlier; have saved lots of geese from gassing and many pigs from wrestling at fairs and I never give up on a feral cat or a manic dog these days. THAT is the meaning of life for me.

Of course, I forever neglected to stand up for myself...until just recently. Plenty of opportunities to do so! In my next life I want to NOT endure the same treatment. How about you?



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Read about movies and nostalgia, animal issues and sociopolitical concerns all discussed in my book Secrets of an Old Typewriter and its follow-up Misunderstood Gargoyles and Overrated Angels - print and ebook versions of both are available on Amazon (click the title).

The books are also carried by these fine retailers: Ann Arbor's Bookbound and Common Language; Columbia City's Whitley County Historical Museum; and Fort Wayne's The Bookmark.

And you can download from iTunes.

Meet other like-minded souls at my facebook fan page

Visit my author website at www.susieduncansexton.com

Join a great group of animal advocates Squawk Back: Helping animals when others can't ... Or Won't

I have the heart of a lion ... when I am not too nervous to live?

I am an insomniac like the Donald! YET, I go into a coma-zombie-like sleep like Hillary. Thus, I relate to both of those Baby Boomers, and they both take the cake.

They would be an excellent combo, if they were not involved in warring. I could see them as prez and veep. The Donald makes me giggle every day. If people can idolize other snotty, smart aleck Baby Boomer men (who shall remain unnamed), why not the Donald? Except with a gentle heart buried in his barrel like chest. I just know that!



BUT Hillary is way calmer because of her idiotic but brilliant Baby Boomer hubby dubby, and 'Boomer boys are almost unmarryable. Ask me; I know whereof I speak. Thus, my sleep pattern has emerged, so that I can maintain what sanity I may possess.

I am so lost that I think the rest of the world is crazy, and I am just fine. Thank God for that deception...keeps me percolating.

I actually put this in print? Because I have the heart of a lion ... when I am not too nervous to live?



Postscript...

As to stomaching Boomer males, I almost have that conquered; that is the basis for the alternative right by the way. I cannot believe the white male entitlement (notice TIT in the middle of that word and ain't that interesting?) argument: as in "ADORE ME BECAUSE I AM SHALLOW AND UNDEPENDABLE AND WOULD CRUSH YOUR SPIRIT IN ONE SECOND". So what else is new?



Trump is not any more mentally ill than an entire generation of spoiled brat men who have often even gotten away with murder in our patriarchal, faux penis envy (I detest Freud for that one) "society". I believe in evolution and that one day gender will be an obsolete word. REAL persons do not envy anything.

Peace...personhood...reverence for all species of which we are only one: Hillary brings us one step closer. Even if I didn't love her, I would like her. Her courage impresses me. I would be crying every second if I were in her shoes. Hoo-ray for Hillary, an opportunity for change of the first order.



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Thanks for this feedback!

Drex Morton: "Both hilarious and and deeply perceptive in the same breath, Susie achieves a creative balance... As a Boomer man, I love to read, and I resonate with Susie Sexton and her ruminations..."

Drex! Here is the greatest compliment I could ever offer! I DID NOT KNOW THAT YOU MIGHT BE A BOOMER. You never behave like one of those monsters. Not ever!



Thanks also to Kat, Kim, Beth, Joyce!

Kat Kelly-Heinzelman: "I love the article and I wrote more in the comments [below]. I always like Susie's stuff she has knowledge that is so cool to know...like with Dr. Seuss...Susie is a book of knowledge."

Joyce Sciumbato: "I must meet Susie!"

Beth Kennedy: "You always keep me awake just laughing!"

Kim Elizabeth Johnson: "I believe you are correct in that the rest of the world IS crazy! No doubt contributing to our shared insomnia, what with the lack of marriageable Boomer men! LOL!"

These comments prove that in my supposed loneliness and unwilling isolation, I do indeed have allies? I AM MOVED BY THAT SUPPORT...BEYOND WORDS! Thanks so very much!!!

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Read about movies and nostalgia, animal issues and sociopolitical concerns all discussed in my book Secrets of an Old Typewriter and its follow-up Misunderstood Gargoyles and Overrated Angels - print and ebook versions of both are available on Amazon (click the title).

The books are also carried by these fine retailers: Ann Arbor's Bookbound and Common Language; Columbia City's Whitley County Historical Museum; and Fort Wayne's The Bookmark.

And you can download from iTunes.

Meet other like-minded souls at my facebook fan page

Visit my author website at www.susieduncansexton.com

Join a great group of animal advocates Squawk Back: Helping animals when others can't ... Or Won't

Sad I am? Ha!

I do not LIKE "green eggs and ham" nor... computers...nor LinkedIn...nor pop-ups...nor naysayers...nor politics...nor some pundits...nor that OTHER party.



Dr. Seuss, I miss you. Kurt Vonnegut, I miss you, too! And so it goes. Thinking of you both and trying to see the humor in this confused and confusing messed up world!

Sad I am? Ha!



...But then something wonderful happens. Just this week - in the month of my beloved father's birth - this article ran in our local paper about the marvelous renovations at the former Blue Bell plant he used to manage. History comes alive indeed. I know many souls who would have been so very, very thrilled with this lovely development.



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Read about movies and nostalgia, animal issues and sociopolitical concerns all discussed in my book Secrets of an Old Typewriter and its follow-up Misunderstood Gargoyles and Overrated Angels - print and ebook versions of both are available on Amazon (click the title).

The books are also carried by these fine retailers: Ann Arbor's Bookbound and Common Language; Columbia City's Whitley County Historical Museum; and Fort Wayne's The Bookmark.

And you can download from iTunes.

Meet other like-minded souls at my facebook fan page

Visit my author website at www.susieduncansexton.com

Join a great group of animal advocates Squawk Back: Helping animals when others can't ... Or Won't

Old Type Writer: Goodbye, Goodbye, Mr. Massey

My latest "Old Type Writer" column "Goodbye, Goodbye, Mr. Massey" covers a host of topics: golfing, celebrities, author William Faulkner, actor Daniel Day-Lewis, Xanadu, musical star Laura Benanti, She Loves Me, Blue Bell-manufactured Wrangler Jeans, our current political climate, father/son actors Raymond and Daniel Massey, comedian Red Buttons, Abe Lincoln, and most significantly the importance of consciousness. Enjoy!



(And, as always, the words highlighted in blue in the text offer an extra audiovisual treat!) Thanks, again, to editor Jennifer Romano and Talk of the Town for the longstanding support of my writings.

http://talkofthetownwc.com/oldtypewri...



Also, I contributed an essay to Dearborn's Henry Ford Centennial Library's latest collection! The book, Dreaming Dreams No Mortal Ever Dared to Dream Before, is now available to order on Amazon. In this collection of Poe-inspired stories and poems, you will find dreams (and nightmares), ghost stories, horror, madness, mystery, imagination, and even some humor. It is about 450 pages long and has works from over 150 authors. More info, including link to order, here …

https://bigreaddearborn.org/2016/08/1...



Goodness! Thanks for this lovely feedback!

Gina Furia Rubel: "Roy, your mom is a rock star!"

Jackie Jenkins: "Tee hee…hot pants are not appropriate golf attire!"

Henry Fischer: "That’s great - thanks so much!"

Mary Shaull: "What an amazing woman/writer/thinker - and birth mother."

Kat Kelly-Heinzelman: "Awesome 'Goodbye to Mr. Massey'....Miss Susie...great article, Susie, and thanks for sharing, Roy."

Drex Morton: "Love Susie Sexton and her 'stream of consciousness'"...

Alice Rivera: "Roy, your Mom is such a joy. I just love her. In our lives we meet a lot of people, but Susie is the very special person that made a big impression on many lives, She has the nicest son I have ever met, and your Dad is a great man too, No wonder why, Roy, you are such an Angel."

Beth Kennedy: "I especially love the greeting cards."

Bev Sexton: "Sounds like you both lead a very exciting life! You know how to write for sure. I enjoyed all of it. Thanks to you both."

Ryan Evans: "This is a fabulous piece, Roy. Please let your mom know. Thanks for including me!"

Jo Biddle: "As always, Roy, I enjoyed your mom's Old Type Writer! Thanks for keeping me in the loop!"

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Read about movies and nostalgia, animal issues and sociopolitical concerns all discussed in my book Secrets of an Old Typewriter and its follow-up Misunderstood Gargoyles and Overrated Angels - print and ebook versions of both are available on Amazon (click the title).

The books are also carried by these fine retailers: Ann Arbor's Bookbound and Common Language; Columbia City's Whitley County Historical Museum; and Fort Wayne's The Bookmark.

And you can download from iTunes.

Meet other like-minded souls at my facebook fan page

Visit my author website at www.susieduncansexton.com

Join a great group of animal advocates Squawk Back: Helping animals when others can't ... Or Won't

Zelig. Trust me...look at my scars!

"Mike Pence alone cannot save the Republican party????" Mike Pence and his ilk are exactly what is WRONG with the GOP! Oh, don't even get me started. ZELIG!

How to be a GOP monster...






Zel·ig ...

/ˈzeliɡ/

noun
North American

noun: Zelig; plural noun: Zeligs

a person who is able to change their appearance, behavior, or attitudes, so as to be comfortable in any situation.

Way scarier than Trump (which is pretty damn scary). Way scarier as are they all. Trump may be the best of a terrible, TERRIBLE lot. That is how nothingy AND scary they all are - Paul Ryan included! Arghhhh.

As for "The Donald," the secret...the key...the explanation? HE IS A BABY BOOMER. BABY BOOMERS ARE ALL THE SAME - not mentally ill...just typical Boomers. Is that clear? Especially MALE Boomers. I'm not complaining; just explaining sociology!



And I have lived it. These "guys" are everywhere...a kind of constant terrorism. Trust me...look at my scars!

I think I should have gotten my PhD in prognostication or sooth-saying. I swear Baby Boomers are self-loving and self-loathing and self-indulgent at the same time, which results in vacuousness or vacuity?

Reasonable = Hillary. That is all.



And, now, for a palate cleanser ...

Courtesy of "The Bear Way" - Food pleaseee

Videos and real life moments like THIS? My idea of God. Yep. No matter how much rattling humans do about religion, THIS IS MY CONCEPT OF GOD, so do NOT overlook God in your human-ass vanity I always say. There is God right before our eyes. In the world around us. End of sermonizing! It starts with evolution. It starts with the animals from whom we are lucky enough to have evolved...or devolved. A-men forever


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Read about movies and nostalgia, animal issues and sociopolitical concerns all discussed in my book Secrets of an Old Typewriter and its follow-up Misunderstood Gargoyles and Overrated Angels - print and ebook versions of both are available on Amazon (click the title).

The books are also carried by these fine retailers: Ann Arbor's Bookbound and Common Language; Columbia City's Whitley County Historical Museum; and Fort Wayne's The Bookmark.

And you can download from iTunes.

Meet other like-minded souls at my facebook fan page

Visit my author website at www.susieduncansexton.com

Join a great group of animal advocates Squawk Back: Helping animals when others can't ... Or Won't