This is utterly ridiculous !!!!  And it SUCKS!!!!

Last night, when I went to do my minstry at the federal Prison here in Sandstone, MN, I learned something VERY disturbing.  The U.S. Bureau of Prisons (BOP) now has a standardized list of permitted books for federal prison chapel libraries.   It's VERY specific -- listed by title, author, publisher, etc.  for each religion.  If it ain't on the list, it comes off the shelves.  This is coming down from the Dept of Justice -- has AG Gonzales gone INSANE?????

The books on the Jewish list are all mostly from the Artscroll publisher -- very ultra-orthodox stuff.  Now, I'm an Orthodox Jew, but what about non-Orthodox Jews?  Who made this list?  A CEO from Artscroll?  And these are expensive books, nobody donates used ones.   EVERYTHING not on the list had to come off the shelves.  So now, our Judaica section is almost EMPTY!!!

And what were chaplains told to do with the "reject" books?  Get rid of them.  How about a nice fascist bonfire, anybody?

Better yet, write your Congress persons and PROTEST!!!

Good morning! 

A sunny day here in MN -- snow is GONE!  Things are drying out fast -- so this will be a yard-cleanup day.   (Among other things, I have to get rid of a lot of broken tree branches from the March storm.)

Here's another adorable pic of Chayah and her kittens -- also taken yesterday morning at 12 hours old.  She is such a good mother!

I'm selling a full-sized download of this pic (& the two others I posted yesterday) to save toward getting her spayed. 

Right now I'm packaging up the seeds I sold yesterday, to mail later.

How's your weather, what are your plans today? 

Kittens!  Kittens!  Kittens! 

Yesterday Chayah Cat finally delivered her litter -- seven beautiful kitties.   She had them in a box under my bed, and insisted that I be there.  In fact, when she went into labor she came and got me.  Such a honor -- and always a miracle -- she knew exactly what to do and when to do it.  

Such a thrill to watch!

The first was born around 4pm, the last around 8pm.   It was a long delivery, and she rested quite a long time between kittens 4 and 5 (there are 7 altogether). 

Man, was she tired afterward!  Like all mother cats, she cleaned up the afterbirth -- that gives her the nutrition she needs to just sleep for hours while the kittens nurse.  Everything in God's creation is so beautifully balanced!  (I had to change their bedding, though -- birth is a messy miracle.) 

Yes, there are 7 kittens in that pile -- 2 orange, one black, and four grey tabbies.   The youngest kitten here is only 12 hours old. 

The daddy, I suspect, is this guy named Tigger -- who was neutered on Friday the 13th.  (Maybe not his lucky day -- but at least he won't be doing THAT again.)  The money to neuter him came from the fund I had saved up to spay Chayah (a cat in the hand is worth two in the bushes...)  The rest will probably go to the needs of Chayah and her kittens.   So I will have to start saving up again to get her spayed when the kittens are weaned.   You can help by buying a full-sized version of these pics of her  and her kittens -- see links below.

(For those who missed the beginning of this saga, she was a starving stray I took in back in January.  At the time she was too weak and sick to survive spaying.  By the time she had recovered, Tigger had matured...  and the result is what you see here.  Lovely babies -- but 7 are enough!