SPACE: THE FINAL FRONTIER..?

Watch this ballad to the very end; then compare to the following collage I put together this morning.  

First the song about "conflict," then followed by a line from the television series...

Star Trek

GET BUSY LIVING OR HURRY-UP AND DIE..?

***

"At any given moment, there are only so many "good" homes available taking on a pet.  Even with the begging, pressuring, twisting of a few arms here and there, still, we have far more abandoned/abused pets in need of  a "good" home than we are able finding any kind of home for them...period!  I'm okay with spaying a pregnant dog or cat no matter what stage of pregnancy, without, any attempts saving these unborn puppies or kittens; even if they could be saved after performing a complete ovariohysterectomy first then handing the gravid uterus off to the technicians for them to attempt saving these puppies and kittens as I finish up the spay. The way I see it, even...IF...able finding homes for these last minute saved puppies and kittens, this would only be that many homes, once available, now unavailable for these abandoned/abused dogs and cats already here long overdue a home better than the ones they are currently living." 

~(James E. Avery, DVM:  Relief Veterinarian)~

"Amen!  

With you all the way on that one!"

~(Micheal Smith, DVM:  Associate Veterinarian Now Owner)~

"But you are...against... abortions?"

~(James E. Avery, DVM:  Bleeding Heart Liberal)~

"There's a world of difference between a...BABY...and a kitten!"

~(Micheal Smith, DVM:  Baptist/Religious Right Conservative)~

"That's what we keep telling ourselves."

~(James E. Avery, DVM:  Fast Approaching Burnout)~

[NOT TOO MANY MOONS LATER]

"Have you ever been in jail?"

~(DeKalb Crisis Center)~

"Yes."

~(Simply Jim:  Mature Methodist Crackhead)~

"The name of this jail?"

~(DeKalb Crisis Center)~

"Pale Blue Dot."

~(Simply Jim:  Twisted Purple C.O.W.)~

"huh..?"

~(DeKalb Crisis Center)~

"Yeah, that's right:  Pale Blue Dot.  
Once on; can never get off."

~(Simply Jim:  Dead Man Walking)~

BEAVER CROSSING 

ANIMAL HOSPITAL

by

James E. Avery, DVM

~(6!9)~


TAO~g(Herd Health Medicine)d~OG

ON THE MOTE OF DUST

“Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.”
― Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space