I saw this floating around Facebook. I’m putting my list here so I can find it when I want to add more movies/books to it. When I sat down to compile this list, I didn’t realize I’ve read so many books!! I’m more of a film buff. Here’s my incomplete list in no particular order:
Jurassic Park
Alice in Wonderland
To Kill a Mockingbird
Of Mice and Men
Grapes of Wrath
A Clockwork Orange
The Shining
David Copperfield
Great Expectations
Tom Sawyer
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
The Great Gatsby
In Cold Blood
Helter Skelter
Nineteen Eighty-Four
The Hobbit
Chronicles of Narnia
Frankenstein
Dracula
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
Catch 22
Les Miserables
The Outsiders
The Diary of Anne Frank
The Time Machine
2001: A Space Odyssey
Slaughterhouse-Five
A Christmas Carol
Old Man and the Sea
The Maltese Falcon
It
Misery
Cujo
Carrie
Christine
Firestarter
The Dead Zone
Firestarter
The Stand
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
Watership Down
Lord of the Flies
The Scarlet Letter
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Animal Farm
Fahrenheit 451
Midsummer’s Night Dream
Romeo and Juliet
West Side Story
The Bible
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
The Glass Menagerie
Charlotte’s Web
Carl Linnaeus is called the Father of Taxonomy. He developed the classification system that became what is now called taxonomy. Carl Linnaeus defined the word Species like this (paraphrase): If two animals can mate and produce fertile offspring they are the same species.
Wolves, foxes, jackals, coyotes, and all other wild dogs around the world are considered different species just because they look slightly different from each other, even though they can all mate and produce fertile offspring:
All dog breeds recognized by the American Kennel Club are known to be the same species: dog, Canis familiaris. They look remarkably different from each other. But, everyone knows and agrees that dog breeds are all the same species because we have seen it happen. They were all selectively bred for desired traits from dogs. Being a different size, different color, or different shape does not change the fact that they are all the same species: Dogs.
Wolves, foxes, jackals, coyotes and domestic dogs are all interfertile, meaning they can all mate and produce fertile offspring. That, by definition, makes them all the same species. So, why is it that wild dogs which look slightly different from each other are considered different species, yet domestic dogs which look very different from each other are known to be the same species?
Here’s why: All the various genus and species names given to wild dogs are a smoke screen to distract from the fact that there is only one kind of dog, but many, many varieties of that one kind of dog. There is no evidence to show that dogs evolved from any other animal. Dogs have always been dogs. Dogs had to be created in their final form, as dogs…. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, and dogs….
There are almost 200 breeds of domestic dog recognized by the American Kennel Club. There is a great deal of variety in size, color, shape, and many other attributes, a great deal more variety than in wild dogs. But they are all known to be the same species, dogs… All of the very different dogs breeds in the images below are the same species:
Dog breeds recognized by the American Kennel Club:
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth….. and dogs….
(This is an old blog post from my old blog. I wrote it in 2009, and the details are out of date, but I’m sharing it here as is because I don’t feel like rewriting it right now. But here’s a rant I wrote:)
I am a great believer in adopting “used” pets. Too many people get a pet on the spur of the moment, and then realize later how much work it is to be a pet owner. When I adopt a pet, I keep it for all its life. All three of my dogs are rescued. Belty was on death row at the pound at the age of one and a half years. Nicki was abandoned as a mixed breed puppy when a kennel changed locations. Lily is very old and was found all messed up and brought to a vet for care.
The saddest story of all is for parrots, as they mate for life and can live as long as a person. Parrots grow to love one member of the family who is his mate. When that person is tired of having a parrot, or dies, that parrot can get very sick.
I have first-hand experience with homeless parrots. Our parrot, Peanut Boy recently died. We adopted him after his elderly owner had died. Poor Peanut Boy was a mess. Because of the stress of losing his owner, he had pulled out most of his feathers. He lived out his geriatric years a very happy bird being in love with my hubby. Rufus, my other parrot, is also adopted. His owners got a divorce and neither one wanted him. I was working at a pet shop between engineering jobs about eight years ago and he fell in love with me. When Peanut Boy died, Rufus fell in love with my hubby.
I also have adopted old, handicapped and injured parakeets. They are so small, that there is always room for one more. Over the years I have had a parakeet with no eyes, one with no legs, one with one leg and one with one eye. They have since all died. Fred and Ginger, who I still have, were found in a shoebox in front of a house where a parrot owning lady lived. The lady brought them into a pet shop because they were itsy bitsy babies with crippled legs, hardly any feathers, and needed to be hand fed. She didn’t have the time to take care of them. The next day, I walked into the pet shop and the personnel, who know what a soft touch I am, asked me to please take these babies, which I did. Their legs are still crippled with a condition called “splay leg”. They are happy and manage to get around alright. They both have mates.
I don’t pay for handicapped birds, as a rule. I always manage to talk the store owner out of them, promising to give them a loving home for the rest of their life. When I first saw Pipsqueak, my lovebird, he was one big scab, and hardly any feathers. He had been attacked by his parents, and was all torn up. He was really pitiful. I took him home, of course, and my other lovebird, who has since died, tended his wounds, nibbling off edges of healing scabs.
Penny, my sweet cockatiel and my first bird, was very homely. Penny is old, as I found out from her leg band later on. She was wild when I first saw her, and she was missing a toe. The missing toe makes her walk crooked, and it makes her tail feathers break off and bend in half. She has never been able to grow out a nice tail. But she loves Mom, and that is all that counts.
There is a lot of love out there who can be found for free. Please consider adopting a homeless, or handicapped pets.
Thank you.
Update:
I’m not married anymore, all but three of my birds have died of old age, and my dogs live in Puppy Dog Heaven. I can’t have more pets because I have messed up lungs, and my doctor won’t let me.
Here’s a blog post I wrote about my adopted puppy dogs, Nicki and Belty:
This is a potpourri of movies I’ve seen, not all of the movies I have seen are on this list, and not all of my favorite movies are on this list…. In time, perhaps I will hone this list down to a list of my very favorite movies of all time, but in the meanwhile this is a placeholder… However, my favorite movie of all time is Casablanca (1942)
I have highlighted some of my very favorites in bold today, May 26, 2014, and realized how many movies I have missing. I particularly love a lot of the films Warner Bros put out in the 30’s and 40’s, but hardly any of them are on this list!
12 Angry Men
12 Monkeys
2000 Year Old Man
2001: A Space Odyssey
39 Steps, The
400 Blows, The
50 First Dates
Adam’s Rib
Adventures of Robin Hood, The African Queen
Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds (1963)
Alice in Wonderland
All About Eve
Angels with Dirty Faces
Animal Crackers
Annie Hall Arsenic and Old Lace
Awful Truth, The
Bambi
Battle Over Citizen Kane, The
Bells of St. Mary’s, The
Best Years of Our Lives, The Big Sleep, The
Birds, The Blazing Saddles
Blue Velvet
Brazil
Breathless
Bride of Frankenstein, The
Bridge on the River Kwai
Bringing Up Baby
Buddy The Elf
Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, The
Cars Casablanca (1942)
Cast Away
Christmas Story, A
Cinderella
Cinema Paradiso
Citizen Kane
Clock, The
Clockwork Orange, A
Cove, The
Crimson Pirate, The
Day at the Races, A
Dean Spanley
Dial M for Murder
Disney’s Alice in Wonderland
Dodsworth (1936) Double Indemnity Dr. Strangelove
Dracula
Duck Soup
Dumbo
E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial
Edward Scissorhands
Enchanted Cottage, The
Eraserhead
Evolution vs God
Expelled
Fahrenheit 451 (1966 film)
Farmer’s Wife, The
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
Fifth Element, The
Fisher King, The
Foreign Correspondent (film)
Forks Over Knives
Frankenstein
Freaks Gaslight (1944)
Gay Divorcee, The
Gone With The Wind Grand Hotel Grapes of Wrath, The
Great Train Robbery, The
Groundhog Day Harold & Maude
High Sierra His Girl Friday
Horse Feathers
How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (TV special)
Humoresque (1946) ∆ Joan Crawford John Garfield
I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang I Was a Male War Bride
Independence Day
Invisible Man, The It Happened One Night It’s a Wonderful Life
Jesus Christ Superstar
Jezebel
Jungle Book, The
Juno Kings Row
Lady from Shanghai, The
Lady Vanishes, The
last Saturday Laura
Lawrence of Arabia
Les Misérables Libeled Lady
Lifeboat
Little Caesar
Little Miss Sunshine
Lodger, The (1927) Lolita
Lost Weekend, The M (1931, Fritz Lang) Maltese Falcon, The
MASH
Matrix, The
Meet John Doe Mel Brooks’ The Producers (1968 Original)
Men In Black Metropolis (Fritz Lang,1927) Mildred Pierce
Miracle Worker, The (1962) Mister Roberts
Modern Times
Monkey Business (1931 film)
Monty Python’s Life Of Brian
Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life
Mouse That Roared, The Mr. Skeffington Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
Mulholland Drive
My Favorite Year My Man Godfrey
Nanook of the North
Napoleon Dynamite
Nebraska (film)
Night at the Opera, A
Night in Casablanca, A
Nightmare Before Christmas, The North by Northwest
Nosferatu
Nosferatu the Vampyre
O Brother, Where Art Thou?
On the Waterfront
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
Out of the Past Ox-Bow Incident, The
Paradine Case, The
Paths of Glory
Pennies From Heaven
Petrified Forest, The
Phantom of the Opera, The
Phantom of the Paradise
Phantom Tollbooth, The Philadelphia Story, The
Piano, The Picnic (1955 film)
Pinocchio
Postman Always Rings Twice 1946, The Psycho Public Enemy, The
Quintet
Rear Window Film Rebecca (1940 film) Red Shoes (1948), The
Reservoir Dogs
Rocky Horror Picture Show, The
Room Service
Rope
Ruggles of Red Gap
Sabotage (film)
Sallie Gardner at a Gallop
Scarface (1932 film)
Shadow of a Doubt
Shining, The
Shop Around the Corner, The
Silent Running Singing In The Rain
Sixth Sense, The Some Like It Hot
Song of the South
Sons of the Desert
Spartacus
Spellbound (1945 film) Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove (1964)
Story of G.I. Joe, The Strangers on a Train
Suddenly, Last Summer
Sugarland Express, The
Sullivan’s Travels Suspicion
They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?
Thin Man, The Third Man, The
This Is Spinal Tap
Three on a Match
To Have and Have Not To Kill a Mockingbird
Tootsie
Top Hat
Toy Story
Treasure of the Sierra Madre, The
Tree Grows in Brooklyn, A
Twelve Chairs, The
Under Capricorn
Vegucated Vertigo
Waterloo Bridge
Whale Rider
What Price Hollywood?
Where is my friends house White Heat
Winchester ’73
Wind Journeys, The Wizard of Oz, The
Wolfman, The
Women, The (1939 film)
Wuthering Heights (1939 film) Yankee Doodle Dandy Young Frankenstein
*** THIS LIST INCLUDES WILD BIRDS I’VE SEEN IN MY YARD AND FLYING OVER MY YARD. THE BIRDS LOVE MY GOLDFISH POND!
(I rarely do anything with this blog. In the last few days, I decided it would be a good place to store important things, like the list of birds that I’ve seen in my backyard and the list of movies I’ve seen.)
Wild birds bring their babies here each year for their first drink and first bath!
Gail E. Kennedy, PhD
Associate Professor, Anthropology, UCLA
“The problem with those who are unable to see evolution, i think, is that they don’t have imaginations.”
I have been getting healthier without even trying! I have taken medication for high blood pressure for years. In the past five months, my blood pressure went from sky high, even with medication, to normal! My doctor took me off my meds last Monday. My cholesterol was way over 200, and now it’s under 200 in the desirable range! So what changed?
I had been a vegetarian for 40 years, not eating any kind of animal, but I recently found out how badly laying hens and milk cows are treated, so five months ago I gave up eggs and milk too. I have since found out how healthy it is to eat this way! I heard about a documentary called “Forks Over Knives” a few weeks ago and watched it. It is chock full of medical doctors and it specifically is about the health benefits of what they call a “plant based diet”.
There is one line in the movie I especially liked: “If it walked, hopped, swam, crawled, slithered, had eyes, a Mama and a Dad, don’t eat it.”
It was a big change for me when I gave up eggs and milk. But, I am finding a lot of great recipes online, so I am getting the hang of it. In the last five months, my only food craving is Kraft Macaroni and Cheese. The thing is, though, that I have so much more energy and endurance that it is worth it.
Forks Over Knives is available to watch both on Netflix and Hulu. Check out the trailer:
I was taught that life on earth came about by a process of time and chance from as far back as I can remember, so there was no need for a God in my philosophy. I never was positive there was no God, so I was never an atheist, but I was an agnostic for many years. But, I was curious why other people believed in God.
Over the years, I would ask people why they believed in God. I always got the same two answers: either “I’ve always believed in God” or “The Bible tells me so”. Neither of these explanations were compelling arguments for the existence of God as far as I was concerned.
Then, I asked some friends why they believed in God and they actually gave me reasons! They said that they knew that God existed because, according to them, the scientific evidence points to creation, and not evolution, and thus to a creator. Of course, I knew that they were ignorant, so I told them so.
But, they dared me to read a book. I fought it for months, but, I ended up deciding that it wouldn’t hurt to read a book.
They loaned me a book about fossils. The book didn’t really have anything different than I had always been taught over the years in science classes, natural history museums and television nature shows, but it used some logical arguments that I had never heard before.
It showed that the fossil record consists of separate and distinct types of animals with no blending in between as we are led to expect from the theory of evolution. The conclusion was that the basic types of animals were created by God and then genetic variation took off from there and developed the different types of animals within each group. For example, Collies, German Shepherds and St. Bernards are just different types of dogs, as are wolves, foxes, dingos and coyotes.
They loaned me another book about the origin of life, how complicated life is, and how difficult it would be for life to be a product of time and chance. Frankly, I got curious, and just felt like reading another book. I knew that these people had rocks in their head, so I wanted to laugh at the “evidence”. The next book explained that the fossil record was actually caused by a world-wide flood.
These books were written by scientists. This really surprised me because all my life I’d been told that evolution was “scientific” and creation was “religious”.
At some point into my reading, I stopped believing that evolution was supported by the scientific evidence. But, on the other hand, I still did not believe in God or creation, either. This was a very confusing period of time for me.
It’s a really long story, but I eventually came to believe all that nonsense! I totally came to believe that there is scientific evidence to support the Bible verse Genesis 1:1 “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Nobody was more surprised that I was! So, finally, one day, on November 24, 1996, I had the whole “born again” experience, and accepted Jesus as my personal lord and savior.
Most of the people reading this, if you made it this far down, are gong to think I am bonkers, like I originally thought my friends were. That is OK by me. I totally know how whacked out it sounds.
But, I am such a sweet person, tee hee, that eventually you won’t mind that I have these crazy beliefs.
Check out this quote that was in a documentary called “Evolution Vs. God”:
Gail E. Kennedy,
PhD Associate Professor, Anthropology, UCLA
“The problem with those who are unable to see evolution, i think, is that they don’t have imaginations.”
Here is another documentary I saw recently. Real live scientists, with real live PhD’s from secular universities, made a documentary with scientific evidence that they say supports the need for a creator:
“Is Genesis History?”
Here is a blog I wrote about Dogs and Wolves….. and evolution…
Many years ago, I received an English Composition assignment to tell about a personal experience. I wrote about the events leading up to the day I had stopped eating animals one year earlier.
(On December 31, 2012, many years after I stopped eating animals, I also stopped eating eggs and milk, but that’s another story.)
Here’s the personal experience composition I wrote for my English assignment:
“Not in a sandwich”
I don’t eat animals. I used to, but there were several things leading up to the day I “officially” quit.
For instance, when I was a little girl, my grandpa used to fish. I remember very clearly one time when he and I were in the shed, and he was getting a big bullhead ready to be fixed for dinner. He cut off the tail, put his arm through to the mouth, and made it talk to me. That evening, I could not possibly eat that fish with whom I had made friends.
Another time, some friends of my mother went to Maine for a vacation, and sent a barrel of Maine lobster back to the neighborhood. My brother and I came home from school while our mother was still at work, and found a shopping bag on the kitchen table with two lobsters in it. We didn’t know what they were there for, so we just did the natural thing and played with them, and watched as they had races on the floor. When our mother finally came home, she put some water in a big pot and put it on the stove. When it was boiling, we found out what she was going to do, and we fought for our friends lives. But, we lost. They were plunged into the boiling water. They looked sadly upward with their claws reaching out to us, and my brother and I could hear them crying “Help me. Help me!” We looked on helplessly, knowing that there was nothing we could do. In any event, we knew that there was no way that anybody could make us eat our deceased friends.
Besides these personal relationships with future meals, I had many thoughts on the subject of eating animals. I knew that if I ever had an occasion to feast upon a bunny rabbit or a deer, or a duck, or a lamb, I couldn’t. They were just too cute. Aside from that, they were living beings, and that became more and more important to me. I began thinking that if I ate a cow, I might as well barbecue my cat, or my brother for that matter.
Finally, on March 4th 1972, a friend and I were at the beach. It was too cold to go swimming, so we watched the fish as we walked on the docks. They were so graceful, all changing directions at the same time…. Later, it was time to have some lunch. While we were in the restaurant waiting to order, I sat by the window and could see some fish jumping now and then out of the water. When we got the menu, I looked down at it and read “Fish”, looked out the window and saw fish, looked back at the menu, and ordered a grilled cheese sandwich. Right then at that moment, I vowed that never again would I eat the flesh of dead animals. It felt good to have made that decision.
I feel close to animals. I love animals, but not in a sandwich.
Cynthia Kinman's Ramblings 