BODY SNATCHERS

"Invasion of the Body Snatchers," a scary movie in 1956, starring Kevin McCarthy, Dana Wynter, and Carolyn Jones, was about a small-town doctor learning that the population of his community was being replaced by emotionless alien duplicates.

Giant pea pods were put near a person while the person was sleeping. When the person awoke, a clone had replaced him -- a clone focused on transforming everyone in the town into an alien. Aliens were working together to take over the world

I think Google and Apple are body snatchers.

APPLE is selling us iPods -- also a new version of iTunes with a social-networking feature and an updated operating system that powers Apple's mobile devices — the iPhone, the iPad, the tiny Shuffle iPod, and iPod Touch, with front and back cameras and the ability to record HD video, and use Apple’s new Face Time video chat software. Also, a teeny tiny iPod Nano, 1.5 inches with a touch screen, and more, and more, and more new handhelds are coming.

GOOGLE has the "Android." It does everything that an Apple does. Google is now selling 200,000 a day, more than Apple, probably because Samsung, HTC, (High Tech Corporation) and Motorola use the Android platform that Google leases to them.

Yep, we're being body snatched. Handhelds are utterly, totally convenient. We're seduced by fabulous ads, and the fact that just about everyone's using a handheld something or other. Practically everyone we see on the street, in the subway, train, or bus, in the stores, in restaurants has his head down, focused on a handheld "thing."

Whatever you bought -- it's like a limb, a part of you. You take photos, find things you need or crave, play games, and wowy -- you have information about anything, everything in the world at your fingertips!

Yes, we are body snatched.

The fact is, even the 1956 movie has been body snatched. An almost identical new version came out in 1978, with Donald Sutherland, Brooke Adams and Jeff Goldblum, discovering in San Francisco, that the human race was being replaced one by one with clones devoid of emotion.

What are we going to do? Throw out our handhelds? NO WAY!

We'll trade them in, buy the latest update as soon as possible, and give the old one to some needy kid.

U HOO

U hoo, friends!

Is your mood changing?

The seasons are changing. So, my mood is changing.

I think I have a touch of facebook-its. It's similar to actor-itis -- what an actor goes though after a few months of not working, when job-hunting routines feel like chores.

I'm not bored with what I'm writing about, but what's on my mind feels as if it's stuck in a worry-warting pattern -- the damn midterms -- the disproportionate, inappropriate criticisms of Obama's administration -- those damn political ads! Ads always irritate me, but right now my tolerance is getting less and the ads are getting more frequent, longer, and nastier.

Yes. I'm seriously worried about what may happen if the Republicans gain control of Congress. Even so, the fact that leaves are turning red, gold and brown -- that we're into the fall -- it's telling me to write about other things, other subjects.

In a minute it'll be Halloween. Then turkey time, family get-togethers, nostalgia, and Xmas shopping lists -- whew -- that involves intuition, patience, perseverance -- awareness of what might delight the various people on your lists.

Practically the next day, it'll be red and green decorations time, serious shopping, rows of pine trees waiting to find a home -- some huge beautiful tree will be chopped down to decorate Rockefeller Center -- a fabulous thing of nature will be turned into a thing for crowds to gasp over, cheer and applaud.

I don't love crowds, and I don't love nature's glories turning into entertainment. I don't love shopping. I worry about the homeless. And maybe we'll be dealing with what's happening to the environment -- climate changes -- seriously cold temperatures, more ice and snow.

I'll certainly be thinking, and probably writing, about aspects of all the above.

But, gee -- if you've got facebook-itis, if you'd like me to write about a subject that YOU have on your mind, suggest it. Just tell me the subject -- any subject -- and I'll give it a try.

BAD DREAM

It was around 4 a.m. Something woke me.

A loud booming noise.

My eyes opened.

I saw a dot of yellow. The dot grew larger, became a small, intensely yellow globe of light.

This is it -- someone has dropped a bomb, I thought.

I thought the boom was the last sound I'd hear. I reached for my husband.

I don't remember how long it took for me to realize I'd been awakened by a clap of thunder. My husband was breathing quietly, fast asleep. My life wasn't over. Our house hadn't crumbled. My pillow was wadded up around my neck. It needed to be fluffed. I needed a sip of water.

I figured the dream, like other dreams, would vanish.

It hasn't.

I find myself thinking back to that moment. I keep seeing the dot of yellow turn into a small globe of intensely yellow light. I close my eyes and try to swallow away the sense I had of it being the last moment of my life.

... small yellow light ...

Why did I dream it? The Times Square bomber -- those pictures of the women being stoned -- trapped miners, polls/midterms/where are we heading?

Hmm. I think maybe my next post ... yes, I'll do a post on the pictures a friend sent-- a puppy eating, and baby kittens snuggled into the Mama kitten.

MOOSE STORY

My friend, who knows the CEO for an animal rescue foundation, sent me this.

A baby moose was in distress in a creek. A man got him out of the creek; tried to find the mother and send him on his way, but the moose fell back into the creek, The man rescued him again, and sent him on his way, but this time the baby moose followed the man home.

The man's neighbor took these photos.

The pretty neighbor fell in love with the moose.

The man's dog liked the moose, and the moose liked the dog.



The pretty neighbor fed the moose every day for a few weeks.



The CEO from the rescue foundation visited, and saw that moose enjoyed being fed by the neighbor, and was doing very well, living with the man and his dog.



The CEO suggested it was time to move the moose to the foundation where there was a pen the moose could share with a fawn. The moose immediately liked the fawn.




Now the two of them will grow up together, till they're old enough and large enough to be released back into the wild. The man married the pretty neighbor and they and the dog are now living happily ever after.

THE "DON'T TELL" HELL

We heard Lady Gaga passionately, hoarsely, insisting that we get rid of Don't Ask Don't Tell.

It got a lot of attention. It shook us up -- a twenty-four-year-old entertainer, advising the powers that be in Congress, the Pentagon, the White House, ordering them, demanding they do it now!

They didn't.

We have new headlines about bullied, very young kids terrified of the stigma, the possibility that their homosexual feelings will turn them into Gays, and "gay," they think, is a fate worse than death. In the past month, because of gay bullying, or because they were gay, five youngsters have killed themselves.

We have more than 11,000 educated, trained gay men and woman who have already been discharged, who were ready to fight, and do what they were trained to do. They are in limbo, trying to rebuilding new lives, forced by Don't Ask Don't Tell to find new careers.

The GOP senators, the No-sayers who refused to debate the issue, and stopped the repeal of DADT, are letting lives get ruined -- doing it in order to win the midterms, win back the presidency in 2012, win back the power to govern our country.

They are destroying lives of American citizens and families. Their tactic of stopping new laws about taxes that will help pay off the national debt, stopping new stimulus bills that will help create jobs, stopping the repeal of DADT, is poisoning the air we are breathing.

They say proudly and loudly -- let's get back to where we were, what we were before the present administration took over.

Where we were?
You must concur
Was bad.
Don't be sad.
Bad is better than now -- holy cow --
That we mustn't allow.

And of course, they're promising to fix what was broken/dead/destroyed later.

Later?
That will be a cold day in hell!

FARAWAY LANDS

How did we get to be the fixer, re-builder, blessed savior of Iraq, Afghanistan, China, Egypt, Jordan, Iran, Greece, India, Pakistan, Haiti? Gee, I better Google and get a list of the other countries getting financial aid.

Yikes, I did -- huge list, the money's in the billions -- I figure the purpose is keeping other countries as friends that won't turn against us and align themselves with Al Qaeda/Anti-American Muslims or Arabs, Hamas/the Islamic Resistance Movement, Pakistanis, the brooding North Koreans.

(I'm not in the mood, I can't bring myself to Goggle up a list of our enemies.)

Before World war II, wasn't it FDR's Secretary of State, Cordell Hull, who came out so strongly with "Stay out of the wars," and promoted isolationism? Maybe non-intervention, isolationism might help things right now.

I don't have the history in my mental storage bank, but I resent -- yep, resent the schools, factories, the water-power-heat facilities that we paid for and our soldiers built in Iraq, which are getting destroyed by Iraqis during their continuing civil war/struggle/tangle/whatever-you-call-it, that continues to exist in Iraq.

Why oh why are Americans still getting killed over there? It's as if death of more American soldiers is needed, to PAY some of the angry Iraqis for our invasion -- PAY for the good deeds we did, that they don't want. America is being punished for the more civilized aspects in today's Iraq, that our guys built with their half-assed, reluctant help.

And now with the latest headlines, we're worrying -- we're deeply concerned about Sudan, a land of horrors and desperate poverty. There are other terrifyingly needy countries, but Sudan is on the world's mind and right now, and on our urgent list.

Whewy, how do you feel about us giving Sudan the all-American, Heave-Ho-Help?

I don't want us to be caught in another Afghanistan, another country that resists change. We are neglecting us -- we need Heave-Ho work done to keep our roads, schools, churches, culture, electricity, water, heat -- add whatever you want onto our own urgent list.

We have things to do at home that we are neglecting in order to help faraway lands.

Are we, by neglecting the faraway places, handing them over to our enemy? Perhaps. But neglecting ourselves, we are also breeding a home-grown enemy that's expanding, getting angrier, looking for home-grown ways to destroy us.

TEN OUT OF TWELVE (Video)

John Cullum and Emily have their breakfast coffee, discussing when John got home last night, from the pre-opening rehearsals for "Scottsboro Boys," the musical by John Kander and Fred Ebb.

John's rehearsal began at 11 a.m. and ended last night "early" at 12 midnight. Emily was asleep when John arrived back home, so of course, she wants to know how things are going -- and if choreographer/director Susan Stroman and the composer John Kander -- are acting sleepy. These final days before a show opens, are very strenuous.