Greetings

I've been thinking about blogging for some time now. Here's some background data to bring you up to speed. I am the youngest of the five dogs in my family. Three of my brothers are also Jack Russell Terriers, the 4th brother is a big ol' terrier mix. We live with my mom (Deb) and my dad (Mike) and my brother (Daniel). More about them at a later time. Our house is in a quiet suburb in a liberal college town in Western Massachusetts. We have a big back yard, completely enclosed by a 6 foot stockade fence. Just beyond our fence is a wooded area with birds and all sorts of creatures, like bunnies, skunks and bears. Sometimes the fence doesn't keep those critters out. (hee-hee!) And of course let's not forget the squirrels--we have 4 big maple trees in the backyard with nests and such. There's a water garden with big goldfish and frogs. We've also got a small stone wall with resident chipmunks, and a woodpile that constantly needs mouse-cleansing. Mom says a weasel family has had a den for generations under the wood pile, but the last reliable sighting was when I was just a pup, so I don't really recall it. In good weather I enjoy being out in my yard with all the activities. There's something for everyone to do. I spend a lot of time sunbathing in the yard, and thinking. I'm big into thinking. If I'm not in the yard I'm in the house. If I'm wanting alone-time to continue thinking I prefer to relax on our bed (I share my bed with mom and dad). For daytime naps I use dad's pillow. My brothers don't spend as much time thinking as I do. Bandit (the terrier mix) is 11 years old and he likes to sleep a lot. I often pester him in a sisterly way. Winston is 9 and he's, well, he's just mental. He has some kind of liver thing and he pees a lot, so he has to wear a diaper when he's in the house. Mostly he just thinks about how to get the diaper off. Dad says we should send him to visit the Youth in Asia. I don't get it. Bear is 8 and mom says he's the Rock n Roller of the family. I'm guessing that's a joke because all Bear likes to do is dig up rocks and roll them around the yard with his nose until he gets to the water garden. Then he shoves them in. Then he starts over again. (He had meningitis as a kid and it apparently caused him some brain damage.) He also drools a lot whenever the subject of food comes up. But mom says he's incredibly loyal. That's true I guess. I know once when I dug out of the yard as a pup he and mom came looking for me and he brought me home. Bailey is probably almost as smart as I am. Mostly he's focused on the critters in the yard and how to kill them. He stands for hours by the water garden and tries to catch the fish. He's pretty fast and is often successful, especially in the spring when they're sluggish and have forgotten about him over the winter. He's a sushi-kind of guy. He's also really good at catching squirrels because he can run really fast. Sometimes they fall off the fence and he snags them by the tail. He and Winston sometimes hunt garter snakes together. Bailey has recently started sleeping in bed with me and mom and dad. I don't like this at all. He knows better than to get under the covers though.
HEALTH NSURANCE: Mostly what I think about spins off from what I see on TV and what mom and dad talk about at home. But sometimes stuff just comes up randomly. Like here in Massachusetts that Mitt Romney guy gave us a law that says everyone has to have health care. (from what my mom and dad have said, that Mitt guy is a moron and can't be trusted. He sounds like the kind of guy who doesn't even own a dog.) We're in compliance because mom pays every month for health insurance for all of us (dogs included). I think access to good health care is a right, not a privilege. The idea of everyone having health insurance is great, but why is the mandate on the individual and businesses??? That means we will all be paying for it directly (by premiums an co-pays) or indirectly (by higher prices for goods and services so businesses can afford to pay the premiums for their employees). Now the new law states that health insurance providers have to offer lower premium/affordable plans and if you make $30,000 or less ($60,000 for families) the state 'helps'. But wow, how can someone who makes less than $30,000 afford two or three hundred extra a month for health care????? Mom and dad make lots of money but even they have trouble saving any or coming up with extra, what do these other folks do? Our system is broken. Mom and Dad saw that every day when they used to work as paramedics. A lot of their patients had no insurance and no access to preventive health care. Over and over again they would end up bringing them to the emergency department---- if these people had health insurance they would have been able to see a doctor and maybe the problem wouldn't have gotten so bad. You get as much health care as you can afford. And, as Dad is fond of saying, you get as much justice as you can afford, also. More later.