Saturday, September 02, 2006
WAY TO GO! Are you a “creature” of habit? I don't care at all for that “creature” reference - it makes me sound like too much of a pet critter of some sort – but I suppose most of us are given to an in-born urge - if it be that - to duplicating the thing we are doing the easy way in which we have always done it. It saves time. It saves effort. It saves unnecessary wear-and-tear to the patience of all those folks who react to our actions. Much of my own habitude, I like to assume, affects me alone. It's my business, I decide – and yet I know that's not right even as write it down. Of course not, because each of us is a model to someone else far more often than we realize. Improper habits, we all come to know eventually, can become a prisoner of the worst sort. Some of those are more noticeable than others, fortunately, so we can learn to avoid serious entanglement with many of them. Continuing to smoke cigarettes, for instance, after trying a few of them or of belting back a brace of bubbling brews at a bar just because others seem to be generating kicks by doing so - is an invitation to an ignoble stance,to say the least. Common sense kicks in and we have formed a “habit”- worthy one. I have of getting up around six each morning. I have been known to talk myself out of doing so on occasion, but, by and large, I like to start my day a just about the same time the day itself is getting under way. It became habit when I had to get up at that hour at six in order for me to be at my work-place desk at eight. I was thinking about is thing of forming new habits just this morning while watching and listening to a mish-mash of disaster news including two hurricanes – A & P waters – at once; the mess in Iraq, etc.; another “can't-happen” polygamy sweep in mountain-time areas, another deadly aircraft crash; nuke notes from Iran; “next” in the Karr-Ramsey drama; style news about “whale tail” baggy pants and bare BB short shirts! How did we get to this particular juncture in our present societal level? Is it all edging still lower, or is that sinking feeling I have just my imagination running wild? It's high time we examined our old habits and see to starting some new ones. Suggested areas: New Orleans, the United Nations concept, political stability, excesses in “enjoyments” - entertainments, sports, religion, fat, fads, and fantasy ... and foremost among them all... the end of war and the discovery of Peace. Andrew McCaskey amccsr@adelphia.net 9-2-06 [c470wds]
Friday, September 01, 2006
ASSIGNMENT I have the greatest respect for those writers who are charged with preparing an opening dialog for high class comedy stars - stage, TV or stand-up. After all, the star is getting ready to unwrap a whole bale of the laugh-inducing mixture sense and nonsense and it is your specific job to help hold the door open so they welcome him or her. Try it, sometime. Take a list of jokes and re-say them for the occasion. Join them together leading to the main act of the show. Join them together as an introductory unit leading to the main act. “I was a afraid, for a moment, some of you may not recognize me. I've been wearing a neck brace... sling-thing for a couple of weeks. (Indicates shoulder area and pretends padded arm.) “I had accident while minding my own business. I went to my bank - an old-fashioned one where you actually inside the building and walk right up to the Teller. Mine was a beautiful; rather tall blond..bright, blued eye. She smiled and asked if she could do anything for me, and I said: “ Yes, would you please check my balance?” She pushed me. I wonder about some people. I really do. Why do critics call TV a “medium” I found out. It's called a “medium” because it's “rare”-ly “well done.” Just suppose Tarzan was a Cajun. What would that make Cheetah? Picante Sauce, maybe? People ask me if I have troubles at work. Yes, but when I leave the office, I leave my troubles there, too. I have duplicate set at home. After Michaelangelo painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel he was asked which part of the job was most difficult. He responded: “Staying in the lines, Brother, staying in the lines!” If you ever want to hear sixty-five old ladies swearing at the same time, step inside a crowded hall and yell “Bingo!” Two things I'm still wondering about: Who puts those silly “Thin Ice” signs way out in the middle of half-iced ponds? And - why we call them “stairs”inside the house and “steps” outside? Remember always: Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn't have to do it. Well, now!! Here comes ----(guest)----I'll bet you thought he'd never get here! (Greets guest speaker..make short, serious facts and figures about guest then,to audience say ”Thank you. I tell you that blond Teller pushed me! She did so,too!” Andrew McCaskey amccsr@adelphia.net 9-1-06 [c426wds]
Thursday, August 31, 2006
TOO MUCH! Those people who complain the most about the high cost of just about everything they buy and use, never seem to think that they may be part of the problem. We expect too much. We demand too much. We, in many cases, get only what we deserve when the price we have to pay for a specific item goes up...up...and away! Since we have adopted a more or less universal system of showing the price of a item in the more dramatic and mystery-making system of bars within a bordered box shoppers have lost a great deal of interest in prices. They agree that printing the price a second time would run the cost up needlessly. Over the years I have talked frequently with people working in the ever-growing packaging field and related packaging “services” - fancy stuff in complex marketing systems – and without exception - they have always showed me that we are often the primary cause of our own complaints. Since I have been retired from any active participation in the business the very real relationship of product-to-purse has again and again. Often we make our own bed, but do not care to lie in it. The Beer can or bottle we buy costs five times as much as beer contained therein. The breakfast cereal container is another ready example of such excessive costs, full-color on copyrighted “themes” - which don't come cheap and they are available in miles of supermarket displays in a wide variety of names from,in most cases, just plain old corn, rice, oats and whatever. Packaging costs can run two and one-half times the cost of the contents The same holds true in the frozen foods you buy, the baby foods, the tiny dessert boxes, too. Your potato chip bag, that bottle of syrup, or chewing gum wrapper – are all extra. All of this has come to be part of our modern life style. We have learned to cope with it in some strange ways. Foods cost too much o eat at home? OK. Eat out more! It can be “Fast”, too! Food packaging is a multi-billion dollar dollar a business. They perform valued services for all of us by preserving our food from light, heat, oxygen, infestation and saving us from the gastronomic “blahs”. If you really want to get into this subject of excessive cost, try counting up what percentage of your “transportation” costs area is frills or fabrications. How about your “clothing”, “home furnishings,” “entertainment”,”beautification supplies for home, garden, pet or person.” All are, in a sense, are “packaged” by what you wish them to be. Andrew McCaskey amccsr@adelphia.net 8-31-06 [c456wds]
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
AN APOLOGY I have yet to understand why the governing body of one of the widely established churches in America felt it necessary to issue an apology to both Israel and Palestine for something they said, and did, two years ago. The 216th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church U.S.A. meeting in Birmingham,Alabama this summer approved a resolution which said: “We acknowledge that the actions of the 2l6th General Assembly (2004) caused hurt and misunderstanding among many members of the Jewish community and within our Presbyterian communion. We are grieved by the pain that this has caused, accept responsibility for the flaws in our process, and ask for a new season of understanding and dialogue.” The commissioners present at the meeting approved that resolution: 483-28 They also approved a new statement on the church policy concerning the Middle East. It restates the thinking of the church in regard to the proper investment of the funds. This has long been a topic of serious concern in which the governing members of the denomination have long been at occasions at all levels. The new resolve says,in part: “Divestment is still an option, but not a goal. Instead, this assembly broadened the focus of corporate engagement to ensure that the church's financial investments do not support violence of any kind in the region. It also affirmed Israel's right to construct a defensive barrier as protection from suicide bombers; instructed the PCUSA “Mission Responsibility Through Investment Committee” to deal evenhandedly with Israel and Palestine; and declared that the Presbyterian Church (USA) had no business telling Israel how to defend its borders.” Attempts to try to down the new resolution averred that the media had misled the people and accused certain elements of the press as having spread untruths. Both such effort failed. Concerning the future: I find reason for concern in the fact that PCUS sent representatives into southern Lebanon in July. Reports have said they “complimented Hezbollah” and their visits were featured on Muslim television. Since returning, two members of that visitation group have “been fired” by their deputy director. We might expect yet another version of the “investments” resolution next time the General Assembly gathers in about two years. For our own good, I feel it might be wise to wait until we get a firm idea of just what the Hezbollah and Hemas elements are in this mid-east mess. Their true intent and the degree to which the people support them will prove to be the key to it all. Andrew McCaskey amccsr@adelphia.net 8-30-06 [c-436wds]
Tuesday, August 29, 2006
SECURITY PRECAUTIONS Think of this: no matter where you happen to be standing at any given moment, it is of major concern to you that the next moment may be very much like the one you are experiencing at the time. That's what we call “security.” We say we seek it, yet we also think it to be a rather staid, dull and uninteresting way in which live. Stupid. Uncalled for. Solid security, day-after-day with no element of excitement, adventure, chance, or change would be mighty dull for sure and most of us, I think, really favor a bit of variety in our schedule. A One-Way Street, for example, is that 'single direction only' to the person who believes it to be so restricted. To all others, persons can be traversed in either direction. It is wise, therefore, for us to look to the right and to the left, before stepping off a curb or berm into the path of potential traffic. It is only natural that security measures undertaken by designated authorities to protect average people. We have our quota-plus of individuals who never consider themselves to be “average citizens” in anything or at any time. They consider any such directive telling them that it will be required in the immediate future...as of now ...to change the way they have always done things. Some even refuse to do so, often because it attracts the attention of standers-by who they think see them as patriots defying the tyranny of petty officials. Few people like to be “held back”, “restricted”, “bossed about”, “told-what-to-do, ”treated like common criminals” or “put upon” and such feelings have changed the very nature of air travel, in particular where the element of Time is so critical. So much of precautions seem to be excessive at the time, and some may prove to have been so. During our Civil War the North avoided arming blacks as troops. That was a security matter and it took a while to form the USCT - 178,000 colored troops to fight against the South. At the start of the war in 1861 the Northern whites almost universally opposed arming blacks. They showed fear and scorn saying blacks could not fight, especially with whites at their side. Abe Lincoln worried and is quoted as having said:”would turn fifty thousand bayonets from the loyal Border States against us that are now for us!” Fredrick Douglas sounded alarms as well yet in 1864. Agigxpus you can see in the film “Glory” such fears were false. Today's threats are, perhaps, as dramatic as that, but they are unique and present problems with which we are not conversant as average citizens. Samples we have had should be enough to urge each of us to respect and obey Home Security directives however “dull” they may seem to be. Andrew McCaskey amccsr@adelphia.net 8-29-06 [c492wds]
Monday, August 28, 2006
"AMERICAN THEOCRACY” BY KEVIN PHILLIPS At last, a well-done book preparation-level parsing the three prime problems pestering the people of our native land these days. I place it in a prepositional category because I had to deal with a technical aspect which I am sure is puzzling other readers. I like what Phillips has written – a good preparational avenue for those who wish to seriously study the problems, but he has a fixation; an unavoidable framework by which he says: “This plus This equals This.” Had he said it once - as his opinion, I could accept and will respect. When he sums up each of the three major problems, tracing each from its beginnings, he finds all three have the same cause. The cause is the same for all that is wrong: “Bush, Chaney and the G.O.P.” There is a ninety-seven page bibliography and index appended to the book making some comparison possible. The better side: Most of the facts presented are public information readily available, but Kevin Phillips brings them before us in a way which shows how each of them may endanger our American way of living. His grasp of world history is competent and he does a skillful job of showing how the leading nations of the world centered on energy sources: wood, whale oil, water, wind, coal, oil, the atom – each in its own time and particular manner of use. The chapters dealing with oil are of particular interest right now with war in progress and pending over oil-reserves in the area. The author brings together a vast amount of material concerning the radical nature of religion in the United States denominations have been shrinking for decades. There are now more Muslims in the United States than Presbyterians or Episcopalians. I find it difficult to to believe that George W. Bush has been the cause of all such changes. The third evil showing the demise of our nation it that concerning with borrowed money at all levels. We, as a nation, are spending more than our potential income might be and our nation has become a “sharecropper society”. He sees China as the world's leading power and as early as 2030 . Phillips looks back on three of his thirteen books staring with “The Emerging Republican Majority” (1966) and, rather aptly, calls them “ a trilogy of indictments.” He writes with evangelistic fervor, fueled by envy, distrust and every assurance of infallibility as a re-born prophet who, because of the nearness of our national end, writes, always, on borrowed time. Andrew McCaskey amccsr@adelphia.net 8-28-06 [c438wds]
Sunday, August 27, 2006
LET'S ARGUE It's a small wonder we don't have more wars than we do, considering how often we, and how easily, we seem to disagree with each other. If you still think there are two sides to every question you'd better get yourself a new, improved trouble counter. That old saw has not been true since Day One. The youth of many lands arrive a time when they discover - suddenly, as a rule, and without warning – that there is “ an army way” of doing a set deed. Things in real life are not all accomplished by the logical means Momma and Papa told you about. There, in truth multiple ways of doing any one thing “properly.” One of the most disturbing points in our religious thinking has been the problem of determining what we have ever meant by such terms as “Day One” or “First day.” You can find all sorts of sensible arguments naming just about any set time to be the “proper one. We have split denominational evidences aplenty to show how effective that line of thinking has not been. And it affects other aspects of our daily living as well. After a lifetime, in some cases, we have been told that both he the common tomato and cucumber are not vegetables. The are both fruits. Historically, too, we believe both to have been toxic in the our grandparent's time. Thomas Jefferson raised tomatoes as ornamentals but not as food. My grandmother forbade our eating cucumbers on the same day we had ice cream. If you feel you are running short of things about whih yomight like to argue with your friend and former friends, there are tempting lists on line of such subject.If you feel you are running short of things about which you might like to argue with your friend and former friends, there are tempting lists on line of such subject. Here are several from a list I came across just this past week: “A goldfish has a memory span of three seconds.” “Women blink twice as much as men.” “Human eyes are always the same size from birth, but men's noses and ears never stop growing.” “It is impossible to sneeze with your eyes open.” “February 1865 is the only month in recorded history not to have a full moon.” Now, there's one that's going to take some explaining. Do you feel up to it? Take any side and have at it! Andrew McCaskey amccsr@adelphia.net 8-27-06 [c391wds]
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