© words and pictures by Daniel DeMarle 2017

A recent study found that people who have dogs walk more every day and at a faster pace then the average non dog owner.

So the question is,

If I walk my dog.

Am I walking the dog,

or is the dog walking me?

Who needs to be walked more in the morning,

the dog or me?

Technically since the little bitch is usually in front of me,

she is walking me.

Occasionally I am in front of her, so I am walking her.

So whose life is being improved,

hers or mine?

Of course technically, she is not my dog,

She is my daughter’s dog.

So why am I walking her, or she walking me.

Of course we only walk because time has advanced.

Enough seconds have passed that a new day or evening,

has arrived.

So is time walking the both of us?

or are we simply marking time?

Regardless, since my life will be longer than hers,

She is the third dog to cohabit with me,

I will let her walk me.

After all, her days are marked shorter than mine.

© words by Dan DeMarle 2017

Following the Civil War, the country went through a period of Reconstruction. During this time blacks in the South gained new rights and political power. This period ended with the development of new very conservative political parties that opposed these freedoms, and sought to turn the tide back and to suppress the gains made in Reconstruction. The deal was sealed when the rights of Southern Blacks were traded away in a political deal so that Rutherford B Hayes could be elected president.

We are now in the post Obama world, and the Congressional republicans are treating this just like the white Southerners at the end of Reconstruction. The Republican party is trying as hard as they can to erase any remnants of civil right gains, health care gains, LGBTQ right gains, environmental gains, that they possibly can that were achieved by the first Black President. They don’t care what they are, they just can’t stand that we had a Black President. The parallels are to obvious to not draw those conclusions.

© words by Dan DeMarle 2017

© Dan DeMarle 2017

© Dan DeMarle 2017

The truth is that you are living your life in an illusion.  Because you are healthy, and have some money, you assume it will continue as such. Because your parents are alive, because your children are doing well, because you are employed, you believe everything will continue as such. This is simply an illusion.  You are one wrong turn, one distracted driver, one hostile take over, one premature baby, one unplanned pregnancy, one small hole in the vascular system of your or a loved one’s brain, a few missed breathes from an entirely different life path.  Additionally you are one 100 year flood, one hurricane, one earthquake, one severe weather event away from potential disaster.  The doomsday clock is currently set at 2 1/2 minutes to midnight. This is the closest it has been since 1953.  If you were on the Titanic, you would be fighting to get on the life boats, and the ship would be rising up preparing to sink.  But we go on, in our illusion.  Well America, guess what, its time to wake up! Its time to burst that bubble, get out of that illusion, and get busy fixing the things that can be fixed, and coming up with solutions to fix the things that can’t be fixed.  Your illusion, and your stubbornness in refusing to open your eyes and to really see, is one of the reasons we are where we are. As Pogo famously said “I have met the enemy and he is us!”

© words by Dan DeMarle