Saturday, February 11, 2006
SPECIAL DAYS What is the charm and special meaning any particular day in our lives? Each new span of hours we call “a day” comes to us a fresh and wonderful opportunity – a “rough” - unfaceted gem awaiting the magic kiss of light which will awaken its universal elements to reflect the realities of love and living; of honor and respect and other enduring aspects of the better side of human nature. It must be chipped, shaped and properly polished to suit Mankind's standard of beauty in the particular era of discovery. Older men and women seem to have a set reply when greeted with any expression concerning the arrival of another good day. They say: “At my age - any day that gets here is a good day!” Each timed they repeat it they heart as something they had “just made up. Hearers laugh as if it were. All days are special to someone. It is true that we make them what we really want them to be, I suppose, but certain days are special because we have been told they are by someone who thinks they should be. That being the case, it must be, then, hold true that all days mean many things to different people! You birthday date, for instant. So do thousands of other people! You can easily finds long lists of people born on our birthday date and decedents will, no doubt, chat lightly about the number of persons who died on the same day you will. Do we, indeed, honors a citizen as having been outstanding when we name a special day in his or her memory? I have come to doubt that it is a good thing. It serves well to give the founders a few good feelings of having done something to remember the departed one, but it is really a good, dependable means of seeing to it that the designated one is systematically forgotten, sorted away in our national annals just short of being f raged, obliterated, or run through the shredder. Do you realize that we, as a leading nation on Earth, so “honor” just one man...and one only...today? There have been many more – both men and woman of nationally and internationally-known persons so many, in fact, that you may well be, even now, making a hasty list of those you can recall. Forget about the names of individual Presidents. We now observe “President's Day” honoring all in a single national holiday whomever they were. The only national holiday honoring an individual man is our latest – that observed for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. I have met with some insist that we honor the name of Jesus Christ as we observe the Christmas Holiday. One can observe such an invitation to argument only with concerns about the nature of legislation we have received, are getting and may have handed to us at any time by our legislative and judicial area occupants. A.L.M. February 11, 2006 [500wds]
Friday, February 10, 2006
TALLY TIME It concerns all of us. The seven major Protestant church denominations of our nation are all showing marked losses in membership. We all need to try to determine why this is happening. We need to become aware that this it not exactly new. It has been happening over a span of years but only recently has it become evident that such losses are becoming steady and it could lead to real harm for some groups if such an exodus continues - even at present rates of decline. To often, when such a crisis arises, there is a tendency for us to waste our time, efforts and funds in a frenzy of contrasting and/or comparing strange mixtures of figures, statistical summaries, and some downright falsifications to prove “who” among all church groups can be said to be stealing “what” from”whom”. Such pettiness is pathetic. This problem faces all members of the various religious divisions. One can no longer point at another and lay blame upon them. We are involved. Right away we want to know who is “losing” and who is “winning”. Much depends on overall memberships! Percentage lists can be deceptive. One protestant group shows a decline of 57.2% - a loss of over one million members during the study period 1965 to 2003. Another one - my own – lost one million-eight hundred thousand members in that same thirty-eight year span of time. Other loses run from as low as 12.3% and the remaining four are puzzling as well one lost 25% which mean that 2,816,122 former members are somewhere else Sunday mornings - or , are they? An easy solution to the problem: Check to gate at other churches reporting gains in members over the same time period. The Assembly of God churches took in 2,157,439 new members. 377.1% gain. The Southern Baptist Convention shows 5,669,030 - a 52.6% gain. Roman Catholic (US) show a gain of 45.4% ...around 21,013,592 new members. That enough figures for you? Play around with them as other church member are doing across the nation, or start searching for the real reasons behind these changes. The gains shown above ignore the normal gains of actively engaged congregations; no one seem to be aware of the existence of score of independent, non-denominational, unaffiliated churches scattered all over the country. They claim memberships of fifteen thousand. One I heard claims “over forty thousand “ and they are appearing on television more a more in advancing evangelistic forays and imitations thereof others who have tried that way before – some with marked success. We have yet to evaluate the true effect of that which we call the “Electronic Church”...people -thousands of us – who “attend” church service every Sunday in this way. The denomination which first discovers a method in which members may worship at home will upset membership statistics in a fabulous way. A.L.M. February 10, 2006 [c487wds]
Thursday, February 09, 2006
BE MY GUEST I doubt, seriously, if any of my college professors, classmates or co-workers would have looked approvingly on any of the pages of a scrapbook I maintained in those days and months of long ago we called “1934”and “1935”. They might well wondered why I chose to include in the variety of newspaper clippings which were,I assume, to represent the essence in the era. Why,they would certainly wonder, why I choose to include did I choose a boxy little, single-column item headed:“Just Folks”. It was daily feature written by the most eminent and financially blessed poet of our time. He wrote for the ultra-average persons among us. There were those who insisted they never took valuable time to read “his stuff.” (Some said: “such trash”). It was syndicated in hundreds of papers and served well, I thought at the time, as pert,a bit sassy and cutting comment on our actions, deeds and devious in the l930's. He wrote “verse” we read as “poetry” and he, with some others who had the a rare “human touch” with a words brought us up and over the literary quagmire of the l930's Depression Years. I dared anyone to dig out a selection of Guest's greatest to be re-read personally. Take, for instance, a poem he did titled “Dogs and Men” which just happens to be the first one in my old scrapbook. It is short poem in which he points out the fact that when dogs have nothing to do, it being day or night, be they thoroughbred or mongrel will stretch out and sleep that time away when they have time to kill. No customs to obey; no certain hours when things must be done. They have time to kill. The poet sees the contentment and restorative rest and wishes he could sleep like that. I find yet another secondary value in having saved those Edgar G. poems: Having been syndicated, each of the has printed in the edge the date of publication. Nowhere else in that collection of too closely clipped clippings did I date any item. The daily dated Guest verses keep me on track. Rather than concern myself about such a lapse, perhaps I had best stretch out and take a nap. A.L.M. February 9, 2006 [c395wds]
Wednesday, February 08, 2006
CATCH UP I have, for many years, heard men and women of generally satisfactory mental stability forcefully announce within the hearing range of some who always remembers such statements – that, when retirement years rolled around for them “things” were really going to change. Yes, in that oncoming day when retirement freedom takes over, all of this business rush and bother and excitement, and appointments and senseless trips to h here, there and everywhere,that constant rush of trying to keep up with life swirling around you endlessly – all such matters are going to cease to be! Retirement is going to be a a blessed time of absolute surcease from sorrow and aggravation of all kinds; those things everyone feels must be done; all that Very few of you are going to accept much of that other than common hogwash of our times. None need to have it made any clearer as to who is trussed up on that spit and being laved and readied for slow rotation over a constant flame. Few are under any illusion that retirement lives on in traditional meanings. I am in a situation most would find to be unusual – some, even impossible. I have never, in all my working days - and nights – been employed by any firm - local, national or multi-national who had any authentic employment retirement funds arrangement whatsoever. I am forced, at this point, to admit that I did, indeed receive in my mail a check from the firm's Los Angeles offices six years after I ceased to be employed by the firm as a Technical Writer. There was a two line letter informing me that the check covered earnings from a “Profit Sharing Plan”. The check was for the three dollars and some odd cents, as I remember it. The harsh reality of retirement will face current groups in a much different way than in the past perhaps. Much of the true joy of reaching retirement is to be found in the simple fact that you lived that long and became whatever was you thought you wanted to be some day. There will come a time when you will see names you have known of people you have and lived and worked with, slipping through the Obituary columns almost daily it seems. When you realize you are seeing such notices less and less retirement time is here. A.L.M. February 8, 2006 [c415wds]
Tuesday, February 07, 2006
THE BEST YOU CAN Have you ever had a feeling that you would like to do something truly worthy of recognition, praise and gratitude of all Mankind? Of course you have. We all wish to excel in some special way, so that we might accomplish some special deed which will earn for an honorable place for us in the annals recording it he sequence of event which mark man's progress. We often feel inadequate to do such a thing and we have devised a system by which we can “educate” ourselves to undertake such a demanding task. We set up certain courses of discovery, study, discussion , experiments, and contemplation - even beseeching words of prayer and of devotion are voiced if we be of a of a religious nature. We make endless preparations for an event far in our future, and ignore the potential of acting at the moment to better ourselves. We need to pay more attention to that fund of opportunity which is set up in our path for our use even as we tread the rigorous road which is to determining our distant prosperity...perhaps. Our present scheme of preparations - that which we call “education” - needs to be re-aligned to enable instructors and students to comprehend possibilities for advancement at any time...which may occur at any time. In Oran, North Africa, during World War II a group of Arabs who were faced with a need to show unified views in the presence of western troops moving into their village, showed up neatly dressed in what appeared to be new robes. The material was a course texture – possibly a mix of burlap and canvas , someone suggested, if a material ever existed. There were a dozen or so of them and only the fact that some English language printed on the back of each of them told us how their uniforms came to be. Presumably, on the local Black Market , they had found some standard G.I. Mattress Covers. They needed to cut head holes in top center; arm holes in the upper corners; slit top-to-bottom in the front, and trim the lower edge according to the height of the wearer. Worn with a few colorful sashes, belts and straps they were an amazingly sharp lookers. Those needy men seized on an opportunity to better their lot. They served well as liaison for east-west relations while we were there. After the war I dare say they drifted back, one-by-one to their black market locations. Even at their worst, our own “bad times” hold opportunity We must be alert and ready to take advantage of them as they whiz by! A.L.M. February 7, 2006 [c453wds]
Monday, February 06, 2006
SASSY ATTITUDE Even during our best of good times we are a nation of individuals who carry a chip of a sort on our shoulder and dare any scoffers to try to knock it off. It is an attitude we seem to have a which is built in at birth. I know must disturb some people who may be without in as an inherited trait. Look back, if you will, and see how the concept is a basic platform on which we build. It has been called by some: ”the Power of Positive Thinking” and that's true but somewhat limited. Deep down, most of us feel that “things are going to get better.” That pattern often falls apart - especially during an election time – when we construct all sorts of false, temporary models of what “good” is expected by someone else's ideas and plans rather than by our own, heartfelt desires. People get what they want because they work for it. You ,right now, have no idea concerning the identity of the men and women who dominate the lives of future citizens. Often, judging by our past, the best among them will likely prove to be stubborn; a bit selfish and self-centered at times, disagreeing with you in many ways. Daniel Boone, a guide in the wilderness of an expanding press of people, never admitted to being. He did, however, freely admitted to having been a bit confused for as much as three or four days at a time. We read so often, case after case, in which valuable adjuncts or list of drugs, fine foods, money and time-saving products. Numerous leaders have insisted our nation remain always one and forever free I can readily understand how so many citizens turned against Abraham Lincoln and, in my time, F.D.R. It is easy to see now why people took their actions so much to hear and deemed them to be too revolutionary and erratic. It may well prove to be that this national trait - a tendency to think we can always be right on everything as caused to too suffer woes we might have avoided had we been ,”easier to get along with” Too many other nations see it aggressiveness. Here at home we have educated several generation of young talent to seek to haven in academia even while world industry calls urgently for strong, confident individuals to take active, worthy roles in today's drama of real life. A.L.M. February 6 , 2006 [c420wds]
Sunday, February 05, 2006
NEW MUSEUM A brand new museum has just recently been opened in the Salween river area not far from the western border of China. It is unofficially being called " The Hump Pilot Museum", and very few of those it honors will ever get to see its displays. A main portion of the modern exhibition buildings showing starkly white against a dense green forest background is a large aircraft hanger which houses a B-25H which is typical of so many of the cargo planes which hauled massive amounts of supplies of all kinds from India, over The Hump, into China. If an group of veterans has been slighted by the American people it has to be those who served in the CBI region. In fact, the vast majority of American don't even know where Burma was. I say "was" because it now called " Miramar". It is that long mass of solid land, heavily populated by varied tribal groups, which stretches in long sweep to t the south between India and China; briefly touching Laos and it shares the long leg to the sea Thailand. On the west side Miramar fronts on the Bay of Bengal and touches Bangladesh. The Americans started building the Ledo Road in December of 1942. The 45th Engineer Service Regiment worked in un-surveyed territory. Peaks mounted as high as 4300 feet along a 103 mile trail and the terrain demanded that about l00,000 cubic feet of earth and rock be moved in ever mile constructed. In 1943 four units - the 848th, 849th, 858th and 1883rd - joined them and the lead bulldozer reached Shingwiyang on Dec. 27th l943 - three day ahead of schedule. Fifteen thousand men worked on that road. An unusual fact: sixty percent of the American troops were blacks. As the construction crews drew close to the end of their work which would increase our ability to bring in supplies,and equipment, General Chiang Kai-shek, the Chinese leader decreed that no black soldier would be allowed to set foot in China proper. The rule was, later, modified to allow a few blacks to go as far as he 823rd EAB built that first segment along a narrow, steep trail cut through un-Kumming for road work. His only stated reason: his Chinese troops had never seen black soldiers. The new museum has high walls showcasing documentation of various actions when the road was under construction. I doubt seriously that any of this has been - or will ever be - graphically displayed. A.L.M. February 5, 2006 [c428wds]
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