Cats

It is raining even now.

~

I stir from my sleep at a little before seven. I think about ignoring the cats and leaving them outside, so that I might enjoy an other hour of undisturbed sleep, but I know my babies must be starving, and besides, I am probably not going to simply fall back asleep anyway. Before going to the patio, I go into the big room to look out the window to see if it will be safe to let the cats go back outside after I let them in for a bite to eat: it rained, not heavy apparently, but it is wet enough and sky-threatening enough to keep the cats indoors. I go to the patio and see that all three cats are more than eager to rush in to get at the food, and I can also hear the rain tattooing a pretty steady beat on the patio roof - it is raining even now. It was not supposed to rain overnight at all. The next threat of rain was for tonight. No harm, though. We are in the duration, as cozy as you please. This rainy spell might last a while.

1980 Reagan's Acceptance Speech

At the beginning of his acceptance speech for the Republican nomination in 1980, Reagan referred to the people he met on the campaign trail:

“They are concerned, yes; they are not frightened. They are disturbed, but not dismayed. They are the kind of men and women Tom Paine had in mind when he wrote - during the darkest days of the American Revolution - ‘We have it in our power to begin the world again.’”

Later in the speech:

“I ask you not simply to ‘Trust me,’ but to trust your values - and to hold me responsible for living up to them. I ask you to trust that American spirit which knows no ethnic, religious, social, political, regional, or economic boundaries; the spirit that burned with zeal in the hearts of millions of immigrants from every corner of the Earth who came here in search of freedom.”

Ethnic? As opposed to race? Irish and Italians and even Polish people are fine, but not darkies?

And then there is the great theatrical closing.

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