Somewhat Offbeat: "International Kissing Day"? As For Reilly and Camille Re Kisses....

1. Camille oddly enough likes kisses on the head, and she certainly likes giving kisses. Reilly, on the other hand, likes giving kisses and does not like receiving them—and she will even stop anyone who tries to give her a kiss by kissing him or her!
2. Both Reilly and Camille like giving kisses even to the point of making it hard to breathe for the recipients of the kisses when they reach up to their faces and put their paws on their abdomens to give themselves boosts in order to be able to reach faces!
3. Both of them will sometimes shun kisses in favor of belly rubs!
4. "Momma" has actually goofed off with Reilly by using the word "Moo" when she wants kisses—and Reilly will gladly give kisses!
5. Reilly likes giving kisses to anybody and everybody to whom she can give kisses, even if she's allowed to give them only air kisses or kisses on their hands!

Cry, Cry, "Recall the Fifth Of July!"

On a Thursday, July 5th 73 years ago today, these two men were part of an uprising that is overlooked by historians and others alike: these two, Franciszek and Witold Andrulewicz, were part of the Augustów Resistance. They didn't have to fight the invading Soviets. They did. Why?

Why they didn't have to do it and why they did it are on the one in the same (and I can tell you that the sides of our family back in Europe were aware of it, no matter denials, etc. on all sides now): they were B'nei Anusim whom had seen it before, and they were not going to see it again, even if they had to die to try to make sure that nobody else would see it—and they did die.

Even if Holocaust historians and others overlook the Russian part of the Holocaust, I won't. Even if Holocaust historians and others don't consider the time from Stalin's reign to the closing of the gulags as part of the Holocaust, I will. Even if the Augustów Resistance isn't remembered even much in Poland—let alone as much as other defenses that Jewish and other partisans undertook—I will remember it.

אפריים בן אביגדור (פרנטישק בן וינצנטי) ופעידל בן יוסף (ויטולד בן יוסף), זיכרונם לברכה; וכל אחרים קדושים באוגוסטוב, זיכרונם לברכה

Life, Liberty, And The Paw-suit Of Happ-treat-ness?

A Belated Declaration Day Card....Wait; What?

Thomas Jefferson actually began drafting the Declaration of Independence on July 2, 1776. So...

Also, the Civil Rights Act passed just 12 years before the bicentennial of the Declaration's drafting!

PS "Momma" did the card this way because of the way that the picture of Reilly came out and because she accidentally somehow made the background black for a second. Then the background stayed black, and the original version of the card for Throwback Thursday is...a surprise until  Thursday!

Of Course, Reilly And Camille Haven't Forgotten...

Besides, they have human family and friends in and from Canada!

A Belated #WoofWednesday & #WorldWednesday

Nicole Czarnecki's answer to "If my maternal grandmother was Jewish, but my maternal grandfather wasn't, am I Jewish?" on Quora

Yes. Here’s the little secret that few like to tell: the one-sixteenth rule comes right from Tanakh (Specifically, Divrei HaYamim Alef). Because Anti-Semitic and other racists perverted it, what was a protection of bloodlines for as many generations as possible—i.e., that you could be considered a given ethnicity so long as you were one-sixteenth that—became perverted into the one-drop rule.

14 The sons of Manasseh: Asriel, whom his wife bore--his concubine the Aramitess bore Machir the father of Gilead;

15 and Machir took a wife of Huppim and Shuppim, whose sister's name was Maacah--and the name of the second was Zelophehad; and Zelophehad had daughters.

16 And Maacah the wife of Machir bore a son, and she called his name Peresh; and the name of his brother was Sheresh; and his sons were Ulam and Rekem.

17 And the sons of Ulam: Bedan. These were the sons of Gilead the son of Machir, the son of Manasseh.

18 And his sister Hammolecheth bore Ish-hod, and Abiezer, and Mahlah.

19 And the sons of Shemida were Ahian, and Shechem, and Likhi, and Aniam. {P}

[JPS 1917, via MechonMamre.org]

Machir ben Menashe was one-sixteenth Jewish and established the cutoff when he married a daughter of ‘Am Yisra’el. Why? Because Yitzchak, through whom B’nei Avraham are counted, was the first Jew (and Jews are called thus partly because Yehudah—Judah—is the tribe through whom is the ancestral line of Mashiach—assuming that there is a literal Mashiach and regardless of whom one believes him to be).