Saturday, January 14, 2006
WHEN? At what point, exactly, thousands of American citizens must be wondering today, is it legally possible to oust a man from public office – a man who has been duly set apart to be a “judge” among them; one who by verbal statements and by his official actions, demonstrates he does not believe in the very principles on which his official status is founded, how long should be allowed to continue in office? The specific case is current news from the State of Vermont, a site of frequent oddities in political matters. Now, in addition to having a screaming governor who, when under stress, startled the nation - and actually frightened more than we know by giving forth with a frantic, soul-depth cry which has yet to be examined for ultimate meaning or roots. We are now hearing a cry from another quarter of governmental powers - the judicial side. When is it time for the people to exercise restrictions on authority when such power are mis-used or improperly applied. In this case a judge has handed down a sentence of six months in jail for a convicted sex offense against a minor, and a second man charged in the same crime has been placed on parole. The Judge, explain in his strange actions has stated that he does not believe that punishment prevents crime. Are judge on their own? Are they above the bodies of men who made the laws he vowed to uphold when named to be a judge who would empower t This case involves but a single judge in one state, but it also suggests that it may be time for all of us to become aware of the tremendous changes which may well be taking place in our form of government. I have, purposely, omitted any mentions of those concerning the accused, the specific judge or the court involved. All that is the proper business of the people of Vermont, not of my area. In cannot act in the matter. I can be concerned, but it up to the good people of the State of Vermont to decide what, if anything, is to be done in this rather unusual manifestation of weaknesses in our system. We all have such irresponsibilities regarding other aspects of sound governing. For example, a number of states voters need to step on a few congressional toes to urge the elimination of some of the comedy routines some members perform so well during acts they call “Hearings” which are often more like “Tellings”, “Pointing's” and political playthings. This is wake-up time for many of us. A.L.M. January 14, 2006 [c446wds]
Friday, January 13, 2006
OF LOCAL INTERESTFor Local Records: a Time Line Biography of The Rev. John Craig - 1709- 1774. 1709 - Born - August 17th, in the parish of Donagor, County Antrim, Ireland - John Craig - destined to be the first to Presbyterian minister to the people of the area which has come to be known as the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. 1732 - John Craig graduated with an M.A. from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. Later, speaking of that time: "America was then much in my mind, accompanied with the argument that service would be most pleasing and acceptable where most needful and wanting, which raised in me a strong desire to see that part of the world.? 1734 - John Craig embarked from Larne Harbor, Ireland June 10th, 1733 and after sixty-seven days at sea, landed at New Castle, Delaware August17th - which was also his 25th Birthday. 1737 - In September John Craig was ordained as a Minister of the Presbyterian Church. He had "entered on trials" and was licensed by the Presbytery of Donegal, having read under the Rev. John Thompson during several years of teaching school. 1738 - During 1727-38 James Anderson formed a Christian Society among settlers in "the Triple Forks of the Shenando" in the Virginia wilderness. Members of this society sent petitions to the Synod of Philadelphia asking for a minister in 1738 and l739. 1740 - Rev. John Thompson followed James Anderson briefly as a supply ministers at the wilderness outpost. In reply to the petition of 1739, Rev. John Craig was sent to the first congregation of the area when ordained in 1740. 1744 - John Craig married Isabelle Helena Russell also of Donagor , Ireland with whom he had, as a youngster attended church. They were married in Philadelphia, and returned to the wilderness ministry. They had nine children, three of died in infancy. 1774 - In the month of October the life of John Craig came to an end. He was buried in what is now called the "Old Cemetery" east of U.S. Route 1 near the site of the original Augusta Meeting House. The "new church" stands on a hill to the west as a sturdy memorial to its first minister. A.L.M. January 13, 2006 [c376wds]
Thursday, January 12, 2006
BY CHANCE We cannot escape entirely from the feeling which insists that some strange and wonderful things happen to us which can be explained only by considering chance to be a logical avenue of change. Look at your life critically and pick out those factors which have been instrumental in making you what you are today. Set aside a few of those elements over which you had little or no control. Your birth, for instance. Did you get to select your parents; choose your place of birth; your heritage? Some searchers think they see a pattern here...an ideal, a plan or purpose of some sort which guided the towards certain objectives. Our western hemisphere was discovered, some think, by wandering Norsemen long before Columbus set off to find a route to the riches of India and, on the way, chanced upon the Caribbean Islands. There is also a theory now being talked around that we were also discovered from the other direction. It is widely held someone from China visited our Pacific shores, probably at about the same time as the Norsemen hit the eastern edges of what is now Canada. He, or they, may have drifted with Pacific currents which still bring us occasional reminders of Asia, or they may have been a bit later trying to find a new route to the markets of Europe. No one knows because chance leaves no records on purpose. We find some by accident, however, and our intense studies are based on, an idea and plans of men of other lands, cultural habits and relationships which determined what our future was to become according to the plans of men from other lands who had never even seen our side of the world. Only when we get into the areas of religious concerns do we shy away from the idea of chance. What is providential and destined by a deity vies with the very idea of chance happenings. I cannot agree with the Deist view that holds the Universe came into being due to more or less accidental circumstances prevailing at the time. It has been, it seems in their view, set up as a giant clock-work mechanism of some type which has been ticking away and running down ever since. That would be chance, but it seems to me, to be a vastly more complicated concept demanding more such trite and trivial categorizations. When your child is in the process of being born at the hospital, you don’t want the doctors and nurses to be doing things by chance, do you? Think about it from time to time. To put your reliance on chance is risky at best. If you lose a dollar of two on the lottery from time-to-time, trusting to chance, the loss may not be too great, and that should be the extent of such ventures for most of us. To “bet you life” or any portion thereof, is foolishness. Much in mankind’s history which may seem to have happened by chance really came about from the concerted mental and physical efforts of scores of people in the past who contemplated and worked diligently trying to make their world a better place in which to live. We are doing it now in our space ventures,in our war efforts, as well, and and in countless other ways In truth, we leave very little to chance. We don’t trust it, and rightly so. A.L.M. January 12, 2006 [c588wds]
Wednesday, January 11, 2006
LOOTING Looting is stealing. It is as simple as that. It should be punished in keeping with our laws concerning theft. I have never been able to understand how people seem to be so ready to pilfer when security measures fail. In the recent weeks of war in Iraq the populace seemed to feel free to take anything they could lay their hands on simply because it was no longer protected by physical obstructions such as windows, walls , locks and alarm systems. They seemed to feel it was theirs if they could get away with it. Looting is a criminal activity and should be treated as such. But ,what happens when there is no such governing authority functions at the moment? That's where we were in Baghdad and other Iraqi cities; that's where we were during the Watts riots in Los Angles and I dare say, during the Sept,11th events in New York City, if the truth be made known. Those people who have retained portions of the ill-fated Challenger debris as souvenirs are guilty ,as well. That is when it calls for something in the very fiber of the individuals citizens of a nation to live by certain generally accepted standards of honesty and integrity which preclude such acts of vandalism. We in the U.S have a rather unusual attitude toward such “petty theft.” We ofter view it as being humorous ..comic. Witness the popularity of “Hogan's hero's” on TV. Their “moonlight requisitioning””of almost an item was typical of so much of military life. I remember one military Mess Sergeant telling me that he counted on a good one-quarter of his monthly supplies never making it to the mess hall tables. He requisitioned with that amount of “drift” in mind. Just as long as the general public looks on looting as a minor form of pilfering, it will keep growing to become a major factor in health and stability of American life. It is highly contagious. In our educational system it is called cheating. A.L.. January 11, 2006 [c346wds]
Tuesday, January 10, 2006
CHANGING NAMES Why do some people feel they must change their name? For many reasons, of course, some required legally while others may be sheer whims. For convenience, too, in the case of unpronounceable combinations of letters of world, which in another language turn out to be silly, less than acceptable in mixed society or just plan dirty. there are times in life when we may wish to establish a new identity; writers, painters and musicians often start using various names with specific types of work they'd most girls, when they marry, change their their name. That would seem to be a terrible thing to have to do, may be that the idea of creating a new cast of life ....the new family... an incentive to make the shift worthwhile. I must be difficult for some to do.....that's where we get they hyphenated names form and they, too, can be troublemakers and in some ways, degrading for each other. To some such usage they sound high-highfalutin; putting on the dog, pretending their family was better than the spouses. Most of us, I think, are aware of the old vaudeville routine wherein a man Charlie wants his name officially changed to Bill. Every morning when the office staff comes in they will say: “Bill Stynx” rather than “Charlie Stynx”! For many divorced women name changes can be for passing humor. Names have been changed because those who have been responsible to record names on shipping manifests, for instance, could not spell them and wrote them down pretty much as they sounded. Many foreign families migrating to the United States, ended up with varied names because immigration officials could not always spell properly and names were often written down as they sounded when spoken. Name changed as they skipped foreign language to another, as well. Most of them, have been modified in some way over the centuries...last names have changed considerably...so you can't be sure what your name may have been years ago. A.L.M. January 10, 2006 [c347wds]
Monday, January 09, 2006
RICHARD PAUL EVANS Many novels, especially those tagged as being “romantic” have had sunny Italy as a background. Very often the historic foundation vies so strongly with story content that reader so often think he had been tricked into reading yet another travel brochure. Novelist Richard Paul Evan, certainly overcomes any such tendencies in his recent novel “The Last Promise.” He has made skillful use of the comforting warmth and lassitude of the seductive warmth and charm of the famous wine country – chianti's home – which ,alone,has made the Tuscany area a place in which to seek out solutions for problems of love twixt and among strange combinations of humans. I am told Evans, his wife and five children moved to actually live in Italy to soak up some of the local mannerisms. His accounts are first hand views in family tones grasping a strong sense of place; its people and its customs experienced in natural, informal ways. He listened to the artist who asked him to tell the story of her unhappy marriage to an Italian man who lived and loved in a bygone era. He did so and set down much of the mis-alliance. He wrote the love story and discovered another. He set down their love story wit its problems concerning where it took place. The telling , unknowingly perhaps, at times, overcame some of their problems. Both the artist and the writer had personal problems which kept them from living in the United States and these problems are solved by the honest, forthright telling of past events. A.L.M. January 9, 2006 [c272wds]
Sunday, January 08, 2006
FINEST GIFT What is the very best gift your can give to a young man? Sir William Osler once said the finest gift you can present to any young man is the gift of friendship. So, you see it is not too late or too early to do so; not dependent at all on when holidays and sanctioned gift-giving times are handy. I realize it sounds a bit on the corny side for our modern times. It's true, however. A young man on his way up, seeks your approval for what he wants to do. He, if he has any gumption at all, doesn't seek guidance in a mentor sense at all. In fact, he may -unwittingly - may even resent your attempts to offer financial aid, favors, or power influence of a social nature. Your friendly understanding and approval of those steps he has taken, or plans to take concerning his future is what he wants most over all others. You can't give any better gift than that of the desired and much-needed gift of sincere friendship. Sir William Osler was at the peak of his sensational medical career in May of 1905 when he may have been at a point at which he especially realized how he had made it to that degree and had come to know how important friendships they had been to his success. In 1893 he had identified those blood cells we now call platelets which revolutionized the studies of human blood and related conditions. He advanced steadily into a wider view and appreciation of what medical service to Mankind might be for eager, capable, studious young men and women. He related easily, it appears, to those young people of college age - both boys and girls - with alert eagerness. The actual gifts we, following Osler's example, can give to young people is varied. Be communicative, for example. Talk with young people rather than “at” or “to” then. And – listen to that which they have to say and evaluate it in your own mind without, necessarily, making it obvious that you see some flaws therein. They too will, in time, see those same flaws without you having pointed them out as misjudgments and potential hazards. They will, thus, discover for themselves how they can overcome such fears and false steps without your intervention. It a like situation arises again” - they have “been there-done-that”. At the same time, use your good-judgment should dangers continue. Last-minute rescues can be a true test of sincere friendships. Teach young people to have “a gift of gab”... the ability to talk with each other, and with older people in a loose, informal, congenial manner without staid, formal rules obscuring innovative thought and action. Remember , too, that - like it or or not - you are a model for them. Good or bad. You are one or the other. Check your own standing from time to time to make sure you continue to a worthy template of which that young person may base his life. The cardinal rule is said “to make a friend,you have to be one.” It can be given and received a one and the same time. The basis of a friendship is being interested, concerned, loving and caring all the way. “In the life of a young man the most essential thing for happiness is the gift of friendship.” Sir William Osler, Canadian doctor. May 2, 1905. Wise words. A.L.M. January 8, 2006 [c582wds]
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