A St. Louis Area Animal Shelter Desperately Needs Your Help!

Up until now, I hadn't mentioned the name of the animal shelter I volunteer at, mostly for security reasons, ever since The Confrontation, I've been more mindful of not being very specific about where I'm at, or where I go.
  Something has come up this week, however that has lead me to violate this rule just once. I have been volunteering to Granite City's APA chapter, and today, I was talking to their volunteers and their treasurer, who stopped in to pick up the adoption paperwork and related fees.

Right now, they have had a lot of success with adopting out animals, thankfully. They have been spreading the word online more about the shelter (check out their listings of dogs and cats for adoption on Petfinder), and locally, so animals have been going out the doors rather quickly, but they are also getting a good deal of animals in as well.

They have started running so low on funds that they are considering ending their open house hours, where visitors can come in and view the animals for adoption, for the rest of this week, and they are having a hard time keeping the doors open altogether.

I hope that by putting this out there, that I can help them. I hope some of you can donate, check out their website, there is a PayPal donate button on the homepage, or consider sending them an item on their wishlist.

Marriage Equality Bill Will Be Signed Today on Desk That Belonged to Lincoln

Today will be the day that Illinois becomes the 16th state to legalize gay marriage, Governor Pat Quinn will be signing the bill into law at 3:30 pm central time today at the University of Illinois-Chicago.

What I thought was a really nice touch was the fact that it's going to be signed into law on a desk brought in from Springfield that once belonged to Abraham Lincoln

Here in Illinois, regardless of one's political views, Lincoln is very much a revered figure, perhaps because we consider him a "native son", he spent most of his childhood, and all of his adult life until he was elected president in Illinois. He's even on our licence plates:

Example plate, image taken from Secretary of State website

Catfish with a Side Of Local Culture

In some areas of Southwest Illinois, catfish fritters are a long  and tasty tradition. Monday, I was at a diner that just opened up in my town, and had a great plate of fried catfish.

Catfish are native to the Mississippi River, but the catfish served in restaurants are typically raised on farm hatcheries or caught in ponds.

 (It's common to be asked in restaurants that serve catfish , "Farm or pond?", I usually go with pond raised, it's a richer flavor). I love the flaky texture and juiciness of catfish, and to me it tastes much better than most other varieties of fish. Typically catfish fritters are served with some combination of coleslaw, fries and/or hush puppies on the side. 

Most of the restaurants that serve it make the coleslaw creamy, with mayonnaise instead of with vinegar, that's the way I prefer it, coleslaw with vinegar, in my opinion, is too much like drinking Italian dressing.

Eating catfish brings me back to the times as a child and teen where I would go with family up to some of the river towns on the far northern edge of the St. Louis area on the weekends, up Route 100 (aka the Great River Road), going to great restaurants specializing in catfish like the Finn Inn in Grafton.

The Finn Inn is a rather interesting place, as you can see from the picture on the left, you can eat while surrounded by aquariums that are built into the walls, filled with various aquatic creatures that are common to the Mississippi River, throughout it's entire length.

There's walleye, giant snapping turtles, and yes, even catfish that are among the various creatures in the tanks.

Gay Marriage Bill Clears Crucial Hurdle in Illinois Legislature

A bill that would make Illinois the 10th state to legalize gay marriage passed an important committee vote yesterday. The backers of the bill want it to come up for a vote before the full Illinois Senate on Valentine's Day.

Once the bill goes before the full legislature, it's not a matter of it, but when it will be passed.

This gives me a small bit of pride on my state for once, there's not much to be proud of about Illinois' state government, as I pointed out in my post on high taxes, corruption and under funding of schools last week.

The corruption, which has been ongoing in Illinois for generations, is still running strong, just this week, the former county treasurer for Madison county in southwest Illinois plead guilty to federal charges.

 He was rigging bids in auctions where properties were being sold for past due property taxes, to give campaign contributors an unfair advantage.

At least there's something to celebrate now, in several weeks, gay couples will be celebrating the fact that they will have the same rights as everyone else in the state, no more dealing with "civil unions" laws that are often not actually equal to marriage.

 It's a new day, a new start, and a major milestone. When this is passed, I'll be glad, but there's still 40 more state to go in the US, the fight is not over.

I'm Fed Up With the State Government in Illinois

Despite everything I have paid to the state of Illinois in taxes this year every paycheck, this greedy state still wanted more when I filed taxes Monday.

The amount wasn't all that much in the grand scheme of things (a little over $100), but every little bit taken away is money that could be saved or better spent elsewhere, especially for a working lower middle class guy like me.


I probably wouldn't care so much about taxes, if the taxes were actually being spent on what they should be, but they aren't.

Despite the state raising the cigarette tax by a dollar a pack in 2012, and raising the state income tax 66% in 2011 on people earning 60,000 dollars a year or more, the state still isn't paying it's bills. In recent years, the state has delayed paying vendors providing services to the state for months at a time, and has refused not only to pay school what they already owe them, but has cut school funding.

Salute to Steel

I've noticed a new trend of poetry blogs popping up on Google + lately, and plans are in the works to bring content from two of those bloggers onto this blog, but in the meantime, I thought I would try it myself. I need something to help get me my mind off of the constant ramblings about religion that I have doing lately.

In my hometown, Granite City, Illinois, there's a large steel plant that was once an independent operation known simply as Granite City Steel, now it is a part of the US Steel conglomerate. It's a major part of the city, and the town is literally wrapped around the plant. It is such a major employer in the area that when it shut down for several months about 3 years ago due to lack of demand, no one in the town did not have a neighbor, friend or relative that was out of work because of it.

Salute to Steel:

 

In a town outside St. Louis called Granite City, there is a sight that catches the eye

Large columns of towers pump steam into the sky

As workers in grayish blue uniforms every day walk inside

The sign outside says "US Steel"

While the threat of life changing accidents inside is very real

Drivers wait as steel goes out on rail

Not realizing that it could end up rebuilding a bridge later on down their trail

Here hard hats and lunchboxes reign supreme 

As workers continuously build the American dream.

My rant about a bigoted Postsecret submission

This is from one of my favorite sites, Postsecret, it truly is one of the greatest sites on the web. People send in postcards, anonymously, with their mostly deeply held  secrets, to the site's founder in upstate New York.

Submissions range from the mundane to the shocking and hilarious. Postsecret's founder, Frank Warren seems to have a policy of not censoring secrets due to their subject matter or offensiveness. Comments are not allowed on the blog itself, but on a separate site known as "Postsecret Community".

This week there was a submission that well, to put it mildly, royally pissed me off.

For those of you that don't know, Aspberger's is the most highly functioning form of autism. For more information, click here. Why this postcard pisses me off is the assumption this person is making that someone with autism is lying about having their condition to get away with being an "asshole", in the words of the secret sender.

I'm sure that there may be one or two people out there who may be doing this in the world, to get away with offensive behavior, or to gain sympathy, but I highly doubt this is the case. Why this makes me angry is that there are many ignorant and bigoted people out there who would assume such a thing about a person, probably for no good reason. I have depression and OCD, and I will that in person, I don't tell many people I have it, because there are so many people out there, riding on a high horse, just like the person who sent this postcard, who do not understand mental illness, and have a burning hatred for those of us out there who are not "normal" by their standards. I have been mocked, misunderstood, told that my depression isn't real, that it was the result of "guilt" (about what, they never told me, and I don't know to this day). I have heard people say that depression is "unconfessed sin", I have had my own family deny my mental illness.

I'm telling you this to say that if you have the notion that mentally ill people have it easier in this world, shake that idea out of your brain now, it's a flat out lie. Ask anyone you know with depression, bipolar disorder, autism, how they have been treated by people in their lives, and the misconceptions people have told them.

Why anyone would lie and voluntarily put themselves through this kind of hate, misunderstanding and discrimination is beyond me, and strikes me as highly unlikely. 

I have to wonder, the person who sent in this postcard, if it would change their mind if they ended up having a son or daughter with autism? What if they themselves came down with depression or schizophrenia?

Would they treat their son or daughter the same way they have treated this person? Would they have the same skepticism and bigotry, or would they finally come to their senses and finally learn more and become a more accepting person? How would they feel if they were the person with mental illness, and had to face the same kind of stupidity they are spouting day after day? 

I think they would start seeing things from a whole different light than their current, bigoted point of view.