I’ve been talking to myself a lot lately. I listened to the media discussing why Caroline Kennedy is NOT qualified for the senate seat she has expressed interest in; the one Hillary will vacate to serve as Obama’s Chief of Staff.
During one of my talking to myself periods, I asked a question, projecting it out into the ether as if I was expecting God or one of the worshipped Saints to answer it. I said “What did Hillary have that Caroline Kennedy doesn’t have that qualified her for the office?” I waited and waited but so far I have not received any kind of response so I decided to research the topic and find out some information for myself.
Digging up data on Hillary was easy. For instance, I found this right away:
Hillary Clinton's accomplishments.
Here’s a page from About.com that is very informative about Caroline Kennedy’s accomplishments:
Caroline Kennedy's life so far.
Other than being the First Lady for eight years, I don’t see a lot of difference between Hillary and Caroline and very little that qualified Hillary that Caroline can’t match.
So, what’s the big deal? Let the woman get her feet wet and experience the job for a couple years. We all know that Hillary wasn’t giving her full attention to her elected office for the last two years or so. The state of New York hasn’t gone belly up because of it. Could Caroline do any worse?
USAGE NOTE In most dialects of American English bring is used to denote motion toward the place of speaking or the place from which the action is regarded: Bring it over here. The prime minister brought a large retinue to Washington with her. Take is used to denote motion away from such a place: Take it over there. The President will take several advisers with him when he goes to Moscow. When the relevant point of focus is not the place of speaking itself, the difference obviously depends on the context. We can say either The labor leaders brought or took their requests to the mayor's office, depending on whether we want to describe things from the point of view of the labor leaders or the mayor. Perhaps for this reason, the distinction between bring and take has been blurred in some areas; a parent may say of a child, for example, She always takes a pile of books home with her from school. This usage may sound curious to those who are accustomed to observe the distinction more strictly, but it bears no particular stigma of incorrectness or illiteracy. • The form brung is common in colloquial use in many areas, even among educated speakers, but it is not standard in formal writing.
Source for above - Answer.Com
I can’t recall the very first time I heard someone substitute the word “Bring” for the word “Take” but I do know that it struck my ear in a strange manner. After that event it seemed I was hearing it everywhere; all the time in fact.
I don’t know what evil scheme is afoot here but I do wish there was some way to stop it in its tracks. It’s too late to try to teach this old dog any new language tricks. Everyone should know that if Ashton Kutcher is featured in a Canon camera commercial and he’s packing his gear for a trip someplace, he is actually “taking” the things he packs with him, not “bringing” it with him. He was already with the person who was off camera and asking the question so her point of view was all screwed up from my perspective. Yet, as I said before, the word is constantly being used in movies and news broadcasts in the wrong context or point of view.
I don’t want some grammar bitch or SOB to explain it to me in an attempt to see this new way of using it as PROPER USAGE, I simply want it to stop immediately. I mean OMG!
Ron Gettelfinger is the current President of the United Auto Workers, hereafter known as the UAW Union. For some reason, I personally don’t trust him. Has he ever told a lie while serving in his present position? As Sarah Palin might have answered: “You Betcha.” I watched and heard him during a recent press conference on television. He may have been lying most of that time. The way I could tell was the fact that his lips were moving.
During my life as a wage earner, I have worked as a union member and a salaried employee. I’ve had years of experience in both realms. It’s difficult to say which is worse but I’m going to go out on a personal limb here and state that working day to day as an hourly paid employee who HAD to be the member of a union was slightly worse. The clincher for me was the period of time I served as a shop steward and was privy to seeing how a union functioned from the inside.
Most blue-collar workers that work as union members probably see unions as a good thing. I on the other hand would say that “in the beginning…unions were a good idea but not a good thing in the long run.” In my opinion unions quickly became something less than desirable and history can bear witness to the fact that some unions were responsible for bringing about the failure of many businesses. It was an extreme example of cutting off one’s nose to spite their face. Unions do not bear all the blame. Some business owners contributed greatly to their own downfall. If they had treated their employees like equals or simply other human beings, there would not have been any reason for employees to see the need for a union to protect them and their rights. There is enough evil-doing to go around to most individuals involved in the company/employee relationship.
Moving on up to the present day and the problems facing our country related to the economy. We are totally screwed! That’s it my fellow Americans. It will be a miracle should we survive this mess.
Just as it was determined that there should not exist any monopolies in business, also there should not be any union as large as the UAW or The Teamsters.
Here are some links you may want to check out that are relevant to my topic.
Some unconventional "Thinkers" President Elect Obama might want to consider
http://www.workinglife.org/wiki/index.php?page=Union+Membership%3A+Largest+Unions+(2003)
The last one above was very interesting and informative to me. The list found there includes only unions that have over 100,000 members. I was surprised to find which one had the most members. You may be too.
I also was surprised to find out that the UAW had so few members. That fact makes its influence and power all the more scary. To think that this union has its greedy fingers (Gettelfingers) around the throats of three of America’s largest automobile manufacturing companies has me very worried.
It’s the financial data that everyone should be aware of before they even try to choose which side to stand up for before they speak. Gettelfinger implied that his union members were already on an equal wage footing with the other car manufacturers who were forced to reorganize and relocate to locations in several southern states just to stay in business and make a profit.
The available data reveals that UAW’s members are paid the sum of $72.00 per hour when all perks and benefits are included along with the basic rate of $28.00 they earn thanks to the negotiating prowess and power of their union. The relocated and reorganized car companies mentioned in the above paragraph pay their employees, on average, $ 32.00 total wages and benefits.
So, you tell me if Mr. Gettelfinger is being honest and forthcoming with the truth when he responds to questions asked of him at press conferences?
NO! It is not right for congress to make stipulations about what the UAW must concede before they get a bailout when it made no such concessions demands to AIG and others before they were given all OUR money.
Stick a fork in me; I’m done for now.
There was at one point in my life, a span of years, during which a day would not pass that my fertile mind did not come up with some composition of words that I felt compelled to record via a method that would result in a copy of it in one form or another.
As you can tell by the run-on sentence above, which appears to have ambition toward becoming a paragraph, I have had little if any formal training pertaining to writing. If anyone reading this post is knowledgeable concerning the proper use of punctuation, they would notice that I am ignorant about its proper use also.
The truth is, I had no business writing anything that may be read by someone other than myself.
I began as most novices do, with pencil and paper. I lost count of the number of three-subject ring binders I filled up with my jotted down words. I filled a small, portable book case with ringed binders and small note pads. After developing a noticeable callus on the first knuckle of the second finger of my left hand using number two pencils, I sought out and purchased an old, manual typewriter to do most of my writing on. I also invested in a small tape recorder that I kept in my car so I could record any thoughts that came to me as I traveled I-75 to and from my daily job up in Sharonville, Ohio five days a week. Using those recorded thoughts to remind me about what I was mulling over as I drove, I would sit down at my typewriter after dinner and compose essays, short stories or poems about any topic, but love poems to my wife were the usual muse.
As my financial situation improved, Maureen and I decided to invest in a home computer. After that, my writing production really progressed. As you might imagine, once I had a computer it wasn’t long before I discovered on-line diaries, journals and the joy of writing a Blog. Hard copies of my writing became a thing of the past. I kept many file folders in my personal documents and kept them backed up on compact disk for safe keeping. I wrote requested compositions pertaining to my family to be read at gatherings such as Christmas, Thanksgiving and funerals of friends and relatives.
On my job as a supervisor in a manufacturing plant, I always carried a small note pad in one of my pockets. I never knew when inspiration might strike and I never wanted to miss an opportunity to write it down. There were times when one of the men I supervised would present me with a challenge. I made it known that I was “A Writer,” a good writer and that I took requests from any and all comers. Once challenged, I would perform without fail and the person I wrote for was suitably impressed with the results. I even surprised myself on several occasions. It seems I did some of my best work when challenged. Most of my treasured works came into existence at those times and I still have those compositions, keeping them close to my heart as personal keepsakes and in their own folder in My Documents Files. I believe all writers have compositions they think of as “my best work.”
What writer hasn’t thought about writing the next great novel at some point? OK! Perhaps not the next great novel but a book about something at least, even poetry. I can remember the day that “my book” came to me. It came in a flash of inspiration; I saw it clearly from the first line to the last. It was the weirdest experience of my life; so weird, it could be classified as “a supernatural event.”
I guess it’s time I revealed my relationship with the God of this universe in this story, after all, if I have accomplished anything as a writer in my life, He gets most of the credit. OK! Being totally honest, I also considered my addiction to tobacco as contributing to my writing endeavors too. When I had my “Born-again” experience and invited God to take over my life and use it for His purpose, He delivered me from so many negative aspects in my nature and yet, He did not see fit to take away my desire for cigarettes until the day I was able to admit; I could not quit without His help. I had often wondered why He had done things that way. I talked to Him about it often but He was mute about the subject. The only reason I gave smoking any credit at all was the fact that when I got serious about needing to stop smoking because it tainted my spiritual witness and was slowly killing me before my predestined time and God helped me quit cold-turkey, I discovered that my writing suffered as a result.
I know…that was a terrible sentence. I hope you could follow my reasoning from it. I’m not going to waste a lot of time going back, trying to edit it. Time is one element of life that I am most unsure about. I’ve squandered so much of it along the way. I’ve given up on writing that book. I have about one quarter of it written, laying in a drawer somewhere but along the way, it lost its importance to me. It also appears that it wasn’t part of His purpose or He surely would have given me a nudge now and then about finishing it.
I may be growing feeble minded but I’m still able to understand that HE was the source of any creative writing abilities I may have possessed in the past.
It was a day or two ago, when I was perusing my Word Document files, looking for something I had not used on one of my Blog posts that the truth was fully revealed to me. I am not half the writer I was back THEN. I can go through my files of hard copies in that forgotten drawer of an old night stand stored in the extra bedroom and trace my development as a writer. Now I wish I had thought to put dates on them. It would help me to sort things out more accurately. As they say in one of those TV ads…”You’ve come a long way Baby!” I must confess; I truly enjoyed the journey.
Last evening we watched "Step-Brothers."
Yes! It was silly, childish and profane at times, very profane at certain points also.
Boil it down and it was Lude, Crude and at times, very, very funny.
Let's face it; who doesn't like a skit that includes passing gas for a record setting length of time?
What's funnier than a high pitched, sustained emission that ends with several louder, punctuations of straining sphincter vibrations at a very inappropriate time, such as a job interview, then top that off with the interviewer stating that they could taste the offensive odor.
I can't help it, I almost busted a gut laughing at that point. Maureen put the playback on "Pause" while I caught my breath. She was laughing also, but at me, not at the event in the movie.
It was rated "UR." Does that stand for "unrated?" I suppose that was a hint and I missed it.
Another Blogger (Kay of Kay's thinking cap) did all the research to obtain the paragraph which follows here.
It struck me as information many others may not be aware of so I borrowed it from Kay to share with you.
* All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish [Muslim], appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit. I do not mean by this declaration to condemn those who believe otherwise; they have the same right to their belief as I have to mine. But it is necessary to the happiness of man that he be mentally faithful to himself. Infidelity does not consist in believing, or in disbelieving; it consists in professing to believe what he does not believe. It is impossible to calculate the moral mischief, if I may so express it, that mental lying has produced in society. When a man has so far corrupted and prostituted the chastity of his mind as to subscribe his professional belief to things he does not believe, he has prepared himself for the commission of every other crime. He takes up the profession of a priest for the sake of gain, and in order to qualify himself for that trade he begins with a perjury. Can we conceive anything more destructive to morality than this? (Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason)
This morning, I opened up my email and watched as each one appeared in my in-box. Each time I do this, I’m praying that someone will send me something that will inspire me to think about life. Today my prayer was answered. An old classmate of mine forwarded this prayer to me. I think it is the perfect prayer for these times.
Heavenly Father, help us remember that the jerk who cut us off in traffic last night is a single mother who worked nine hours that day and is rushing home to cook dinner, help with homework, do the laundry and spend a few precious moments with her children.
Help us to remember that the pierced, tattooed, disinterested young man who can't make change
correctly is a worried 19-year-old college student, balancing his apprehension over final exams with his fear of not getting his student loans for next semester.
Remind us Lord, that the scary looking bum, begging for money in the same spot every day (who really ought to get a job!) is a slave to addictions that we can only imagine in our worst nightmares.
Help us to remember that the old couple walking annoyingly slowly through the store aisles and blocking our shopping progress are savoring this moment, knowing that, based on the biopsy report she got back last week, this will be the last year that they go shopping together.Heavenly Father, remind us each day that, of all the gifts you give us, the greatest gift is love. It is not enough to share that love with those we hold dear. Open our hearts not to just those who are close to us, but to all humanity. Let us be slow to judge and quick to forgive, show patience, empathy and love.
I’ve noticed that the older I get, the faster the years seem to fly by. There’s something else I’ve notice about ME that I thought was a bit strange. The faster the years pass, the slower I go about living my life. I walk slower, I speak slower, I think slower, I drive slower and I sleep slower.
Slowing down has a lot of benefits. Today I notice many things that would have escaped my notice in my younger days, good things, beautiful things, sweet things that others do and say. Now I have time to appreciate flowers and their beautiful colors and fragrance. Stop and smell the coffee some say. Not only do I take the time to smell the coffee, I’ve learned to smell it and anticipate that first sip. It only serves to make it taste all the better.
What’s the rush? Where is everyone going so fast? The end of our days on this earth will come soon enough…no sense in rushing it.
The rhythm of life is a theme I have been unable to stop thinking about ever since I first saw the movie “Phenomenon.” Seems there is always something popping up to remind me that I should devote more time to thinking about it, as if it has an unrealized importance in every person’s life.
What’s really strange is that every time I do invest time in pondering the topic, I end up asking myself the same questions: “If you ever do figure the whole thing out, what are you going to do with the conclusion you arrive at concerning it? Who gave you the assignment; GOD? Is this the reason you were created? Is this you purpose in life? Albert Einstein gave us E=MC squared and look what we did with that. Now you hope to figure out the relevence of The Rhythm of life, reveal the truth to the whole world and then allow them to do with that secret truth, what they will. ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND?”
There is a basic, natural rhythm to life. It can be sensed in one’s own heartbeat when one is in a state of rest. If you can’t fall asleep at night quickly, it’s probably because you are unable to quiet your mind and get in touch with life’s natural rhythm.
This planet; it has a rhythm. It can be heard when one is able to enter into a place of total silence. The universe we all exist in has a rhythm. Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader refer to it as the “force.” When that rhythm is out of sync, they, being sensitive to its rhythm, simply say “There is a disturbance in the force.”
There is a specific rhythm associated with every individual element of nature. Most of us “learn” to be sensitive to certain ones at various times during the passage of time we refer to as our individual life span.
As new-borne babes we develop a sensitivity to our mother’s specific rhythms. We are most at ease when we can hear her heart beating, her lungs breathing, her voice humming a soothing lullabye or her hand tapping out a cadence that we recognise as hers, thereby we are comforted by it and sleep peacefully.
Those men known as sailors and seamen are sensitive to the rhythms of the oceans and seas of the world. Some are so experienced and knowledgeable about tides, currents and swells they can navigate from place to place without using compass or sextant.
All of nature throbs and vibrates with life and all life has a specific rhythm. If one is to survive out in the wild, they MUST learn to be sensitive to these natural rhythms.
Predators know the life rhythms of their favorite prey species. If they did not learn them they would not be very successful predators and would probably quickly starve to death.
There is a scene in one of my favorite movies; Dances with Wolves, where a Holy Man, a Shaman out on an exploratory ride on the wide, natural prairie, dismounts from his pony and slowly walks along through the native grasses, holding his hands palm side down, moving them in large archs, letting them touch only the very tips of the seedheads of the local vegetation. You can tell, he is focused on what he is about. He is doing what he can to become totally one with the natural world or even the spiritual world around him. He is reaching out, touching nature with his life and being touched by the life that is all around him in return. To myself, it is the perfect example of what it means to be sensitive to the rhythm of life.
What is it that certain Mothers are sensing when they are said to be intuitive or receptive to the circumstances of one of their children? Are they Jedi Knights, sensitive to the disturbances in the force around them?
The whole universe hums with a certain frequency, the ocean tides lick the shores of continents with a certain rhythm. A tethered Elephant sways to some rhythm we cannot hear or sense. Snakes slither, dogs trot as do horses and many others four-legged creatures and they all do it according to a determined rhythm. Insects make a vast variety of sounds, especially at night and they do so in a familiar cadence or rhythm that rises and falls from a determined high to a determined low in volume. Crickets chip, Katydids DO whatever it is they do at night and we become so accustomed to the sound, we only take notice when it ceases. The night is full of rhythmic sounds and each one has meaning to some other creature. The same is true of the daylight hours. We are not as familiar with the rhythm of the day because we are busy contributing our own cadence to the mix instead of being quiet and listening.
We humans are creatures of rhythm. Even the most primitive peoples make some crude form of drum or other musical instrument. Meaning is communicated between individuals by varying rhythm. Focus on one rhythm for too long and it will become what we call “monotonous” and boring. We need constant variety in our intake of daily rhythms to remain content and happy. Who wants to get into a rut?
Saturday, November 15th, Maureen and I attended a nephew’s surprise Birthday party. It was with great trepidation that I decided to do it. The season has changed, it is cold weather and cold season even though it is not officially winter yet. Life has taught me an awful truth with respect to this seasonal set of circumstances. During weather that is cold enough to drive gathering groups indoors, one or more thoughtless individuals will attend family functions even though they are ill with one affliction or another, and it is sure to be contagious.
The turn-out for this party was tremendous; many more than I ever expected. I was certain that I should have opted for a surgical mask and gown and latex gloves when I first entered that assembly hall and saw that mass of people. There was handshakes and hugs galore. I was pleasantly surprised when I finished with the greeting portion of the gathering, thinking to myself that no one I had encountered thus far, seemed to be ill. So, I forgot about the lesson I had learned and set about enjoying myself and my family and friends.
This is Wednesday, November 19, 2008 and I have had this cold coming on for two days now.
What a fool I am. I should have known better. I had a good time but now I’m asking myself; “Was it worth it?” I’ll make that decision in about ten days, the normal length of a common cold. Ten days or more of misery doesn’t seem like a good trade for a few hours of communing with kinfolk.
