~ More ARCHIVES ~
Hello, Is Anyone Listening?
You know how someone is always saying that today is the first day for the rest of your life? How do you respond to that? I guess they mean that nothing can be done about yesterday so you ought to concern yourself just with today but I disagree.
The misdeeds of yesterday can have a great impact on today and tomorrow. If we want to maintain a good relationship with our co-workers, our families or or spouses, we cannot ignore our shortcoming and act as if they never happened.
Along that same vein, we cannot let hurt feeling fester inside of us. If we find we cannot fully and completely forget the misdeeds of those we love or work with then it is absolutly necessary for us to approach that person (With respect and in love) to try to resolve the issue. Fester issures are nasty sores indeed.
I believe we often fail to give one another the attention we ought. When we take one another for granted our relationships with our fellows begin to deteriorate. Have you noticed how often out friends, instead of saying something sincere or meaningful when you part company, they say “Have a nice day,” or the one that my darling bride detests, “Have a good one”? Have a good one? What is that? You can't say “nice day” so you say, “good one”? It's the same number of words, the same number of syllables, and the same number of letters for Pete's sake so you're not shortening anything. Why not, if you feel you must instruct me to have a nice day don't you just say “Have a nice day”?
And, wouldn't I be trying by best to have a nice day all on my own? It's not like when someone says. “Have a nice day”, I am likely to say, “Wow, why didn't I think of that? You know, until you told me to have a nice day, until now, I was planning on having a really cruddy day. So, thanks a lot.”
Yeah, yeah. I can hear the uproar from here. You are going to say that what they really mean when say that is, “I hope you have a nice day” or “I wish you a pleasant day.” Well, if that is the case, why don't people just say, “I hope you have a nice day”? How hard is that? Three extra little words and you're there.
It just seems to me that most people nowadays don't relate to those around them. Husbands grunting and nodding when the wife tries to tell them something while he is watching the game on TV. For all he is listening, she could have told him the dog was on fire and his eight-year-old daughter was getting married next Saturday. His reply would be, “That's nice, Dear.”
It works the other way too. The husband comes in while the wife is watching her favorite cooking show on the food channel. He says. “Honey, the left front tire on your car is low. If you keep driving on it you will ruin the tire and it could possibly cause an accident. I am running late for my meeting so you need to take you car to the nearest tire store before driving the kids to your mother's.” She gives him the old, “Okay, Dear” but didn't bother paying attention and now she is thinking that he has taken care of it.”
They say that the biggest problem in relationships today is the lack of communications and from my observations over the years, I would have to agree. I remember staying overnight with my anunt and uncle back when I was a young man and from the time my uncle got home from work all through dinner and on through the evening, neither my aunt nor my uncle said one word to each other. She cooked, he ate. She cleaned the dishes, he read the paper. She rounded up bedding for me, he played with the dog.
These were not cold or uncaring people. I would go so far as to say that they still love each other. The problem was that somewhere along the line, they quit listening. When one or both people in a relationship stop putting out the effort it takes to maintain a good solid relationship, it often follows that they would also stop considering the wants, needs and concerns of the other person. Their priorities turn inward and resentment and bitterness take over. Before they know it, they care more about their self interest than they do about trying to work things out. The key word here is, “work”. Maintaining or building a strong lasting relationship takes hard work and lots of it. It is the same with most things of value, if a thing is valuable, it comes at a high cost.
Whether we talk about in a marriage, parent-children relationships, friendships or a business partnering good relationships are worth the work. It is the commitment to those relationships that I fear our society in general is beginning to weaken. Selfishness is beginning to creep in and people are losing there will to do the work and the selflessness needed to build strong partners in the family or in the community. The “What's in it for me?” mentality has taken hold of many people and I would venture to guess many of them have no idea when or how it started.
Selfishness is self defeating. It's weird how that works, isn't it? The more you put your own happiness before the happiness of others, the more isolated and lonely we become. This leads not to happiness to to unhappiness.
Some years back, my wife took a church-related course called “The Philosophy of Christian Womanhood”. The crux of the course was very near what my father had told me. He said, “Son, treat you wife like a queen and sh will treat you like a king.
The course taught that if (And this is a really big “if”) a husband is fulfilling his role as the leader in the home and if he is truly watching out for his wife, putting her security and comfort above his own, why would a woman wish to usurp that leadership. At some later date we can debate the issue of wives voluntarily acting as submissive partners in the marriage. Now, I am not talking about subservience. It has to do with willfully handing over the lead in the home to a Godly husband. A husband in the position of leadership has a somber and great responsibility.
Good marriages and good business relationships both require cooperative sacrifices for the strength of the union.
“That's how I see it, so that must be how it is.”
_____
Hello, Is Anyone Listening?
You know how someone is always saying that today is the first day for the rest of your life? How do you respond to that? I guess they mean that nothing can be done about yesterday so you ought to concern yourself just with today but I disagree.
The misdeeds of yesterday can have a great impact on today and tomorrow. If we want to maintain a good relationship with our co-workers, our families or or spouses, we cannot ignore our shortcoming and act as if they never happened.
Along that same vein, we cannot let hurt feeling fester inside of us. If we find we cannot fully and completely forget the misdeeds of those we love or work with then it is absolutly necessary for us to approach that person (With respect and in love) to try to resolve the issue. Fester issures are nasty sores indeed.
I believe we often fail to give one another the attention we ought. When we take one another for granted our relationships with our fellows begin to deteriorate. Have you noticed how often out friends, instead of saying something sincere or meaningful when you part company, they say “Have a nice day,” or the one that my darling bride detests, “Have a good one”? Have a good one? What is that? You can't say “nice day” so you say, “good one”? It's the same number of words, the same number of syllables, and the same number of letters for Pete's sake so you're not shortening anything. Why not, if you feel you must instruct me to have a nice day don't you just say “Have a nice day”?
And, wouldn't I be trying by best to have a nice day all on my own? It's not like when someone says. “Have a nice day”, I am likely to say, “Wow, why didn't I think of that? You know, until you told me to have a nice day, until now, I was planning on having a really cruddy day. So, thanks a lot.”
Yeah, yeah. I can hear the uproar from here. You are going to say that what they really mean when say that is, “I hope you have a nice day” or “I wish you a pleasant day.” Well, if that is the case, why don't people just say, “I hope you have a nice day”? How hard is that? Three extra little words and you're there.
It just seems to me that most people nowadays don't relate to those around them. Husbands grunting and nodding when the wife tries to tell them something while he is watching the game on TV. For all he is listening, she could have told him the dog was on fire and his eight-year-old daughter was getting married next Saturday. His reply would be, “That's nice, Dear.”
It works the other way too. The husband comes in while the wife is watching her favorite cooking show on the food channel. He says. “Honey, the left front tire on your car is low. If you keep driving on it you will ruin the tire and it could possibly cause an accident. I am running late for my meeting so you need to take you car to the nearest tire store before driving the kids to your mother's.” She gives him the old, “Okay, Dear” but didn't bother paying attention and now she is thinking that he has taken care of it.”
They say that the biggest problem in relationships today is the lack of communications and from my observations over the years, I would have to agree. I remember staying overnight with my anunt and uncle back when I was a young man and from the time my uncle got home from work all through dinner and on through the evening, neither my aunt nor my uncle said one word to each other. She cooked, he ate. She cleaned the dishes, he read the paper. She rounded up bedding for me, he played with the dog.
These were not cold or uncaring people. I would go so far as to say that they still love each other. The problem was that somewhere along the line, they quit listening. When one or both people in a relationship stop putting out the effort it takes to maintain a good solid relationship, it often follows that they would also stop considering the wants, needs and concerns of the other person. Their priorities turn inward and resentment and bitterness take over. Before they know it, they care more about their self interest than they do about trying to work things out. The key word here is, “work”. Maintaining or building a strong lasting relationship takes hard work and lots of it. It is the same with most things of value, if a thing is valuable, it comes at a high cost.
Whether we talk about in a marriage, parent-children relationships, friendships or a business partnering good relationships are worth the work. It is the commitment to those relationships that I fear our society in general is beginning to weaken. Selfishness is beginning to creep in and people are losing there will to do the work and the selflessness needed to build strong partners in the family or in the community. The “What's in it for me?” mentality has taken hold of many people and I would venture to guess many of them have no idea when or how it started.
Selfishness is self defeating. It's weird how that works, isn't it? The more you put your own happiness before the happiness of others, the more isolated and lonely we become. This leads not to happiness to to unhappiness.
Some years back, my wife took a church-related course called “The Philosophy of Christian Womanhood”. The crux of the course was very near what my father had told me. He said, “Son, treat you wife like a queen and sh will treat you like a king.
The course taught that if (And this is a really big “if”) a husband is fulfilling his role as the leader in the home and if he is truly watching out for his wife, putting her security and comfort above his own, why would a woman wish to usurp that leadership. At some later date we can debate the issue of wives voluntarily acting as submissive partners in the marriage. Now, I am not talking about subservience. It has to do with willfully handing over the lead in the home to a Godly husband. A husband in the position of leadership has a somber and great responsibility.
Good marriages and good business relationships both require cooperative sacrifices for the strength of the union.
“That's how I see it, so that must be how it is.”
___________________
A political Update:
One of the most highly contested races on the local political scene was quite a it below that of the presidential contest. Now, as most of you know, I am a shameless Republican, or perhaps a more accurate description would be “a very conservative anti-Democrat.
For any reader too young to recognize the tern, “Yellow Dog Democrat”, this term means a person is so closed minded and such a strong democrat that they would actually vote for a yellow Golden Retriever-Beagle mix dog if it were to somehow end up on the Democrat side of the ballot.
Now, I do not now, nor have I ever wanted, for this blob to be about politics but It sticks its nose into my brain from time to time and I cannot resist a poke back at it in self defence. I try to be an informed voter. I do not simply vote for a name I recognize for somewhere way back in a small crease of my brain nor am I likely to vote for a man over a woman or a woman over a man just because their name sounds male or female.
It is, I must admit, difficult sometimes to get much info on the minor candidates in the under positions and even when you do, you often find conflicting statements or opinions.
I do get sample ballots from mass mailings where the sender has been kind enough to pre-mark every contested race with the person they think ought to win. But, who are these people who sent the mailer? The Americans for a More Responsible Electorate? Who the heck is that and why should I follow their lead? Or, the Association of American Veterans for a Better Universe. Who are these people? Who do they represent?(And yeah, I know your eighth grade English teacher said that one should use the word “whom” in this case but who just sounds better and I don’t see any grammar police lurking about right now) How did they decide on who they would support and just what the heck is their agenda?
The hottest down-ticket race in my area was the Corbin Van Arsdale-Allen Fletcher race for state House Representative from House District 130. The crux of the debate boiled down to this, Fletcher’s camp (Which included popular local Radio-personality-turned-state-Senator, Dan Patrick) claimed that incumbent Van Arsdale missed way too many crucial votes in the House since he has been in office and that he is a back-room crony of the old political machine that want to keep political clout in the hands of the special-interest few.
Van Arsdale says, it ain’t so and his opponent is a lying snake in the grass and State Senator Dan Patrick’s lackey recruited to unseat him because he backed Patrick’s opponent in Dan Patrick’s bid for the State Senate.
This is the typical delema facing voters today. It is a “He said-he said-he-said-she-said” situation. Who do we believe? And, with 2 dozen races and several referendums on the ballot, one cannot take the time to call and talk to each of them personally to see if they are telling the truth. Sadly, most of the candidates are experienced and accomplished liars. See the delima?
I want to vote but I want to make an informed vote. But in the end, I make a gut choice and hope everything turns out okay. It usually doesn’t.
So all of this brings me to this point and this question. Am I an informed voter? Am I a better citizen that the person that goes into the voting booth with an eeny-meeny-miny-moe mentality? Do I get any points for trying? Probably not.
So, do I give up my quest for informed an vote somewhere down ticket from President and US Congress? I can’t. Someday,(and you will hear the shouts of joy no matter how far away you live) I just might find that single race for some insignificant office when I actually know which candidate would be best in the job.
Here’s hopin’.
God is a Registered Voter
(Prayer, Faith and Politics)
I was once very involved in politics. I was a delegate to state conventions and a volunteer working in a national convention. Now, frustrated and untrusting of our representatives, senators, governors, etc., I fear for future.
I found I could not function in an environment where effectively molding and managing our country's welfare fell somewhere toward the far bottom of the list of priorities, somewhere between, funding the National Museum of Circus Art and debating the ecological impact of Lava Lamps on the Web-footed Wink.
The number one priority of politicos is to get re-elected. Number two, is to be sure their Party is in a position of power, and number three is to bank as much TV air-time as possible. And please, for you own safety, never, ever, let yourself get between a politician and a television camera. It is a Nolan Ryan fastball up and in, move or die.
Some may argue that the politicians, through government programs help people in dire need. I am so tainted, I wonder if they don’t first think, “What would the voter think if I didn’t help?” And, “Where do I go to find the needy people that will get me the best TV shot of me looking concerned?
I think a lot of people are like me in this, they are tired of trying to pick the lesser of two evils. The campaigns are shameful misrepresentations of facts. One candidate says, “The other guy said he was for jailing people who ran stop signs.” When he actually said he wanted a national warrant system that would allow a beat cop writing a ticket to know he was dealing with a wanted criminal so he could arrest him and put them in jail.
I heard an ad just yesterday where one candidate said, “My opponent wants to pass a 15% national sales tax.” Today I see where that person actually wanted to replace the Federal income tax with a sales tax, to encourage people to save and invest more than they spend.
Now, whether you are for or against this plan, is not the relative point here. The misrepresentation is the point. I wonder how far these people would go to gain victory. At what point would they stop. Lying? Stealing? Extortion or fraud?
My old Pappy use to say, “If a man ain’t faithful to the truth, no telling what other sins he’s been courting.” So, what is a good citizen to do? Stay home and not vote on election day? As tempting as that may be, we must do what we have always done. We pray, and we choose the lesser of the two evils. We make sure we prioritize. We pick the one we think will be most likely to sin the least. This is a poor commentary on the times in which we live. We need to read God’s Word and pray. We need to commune with God so we will have the wisdom we need. Most of all, we need to remember, the politicians do not hold the power. The King of Kings does.
__________________________
YESTERDAY
___________________________________________
Richard Corliss in Time/CNN’s review of the Bucket List says “From Dark Victory to Patch Adams,
Just about every movie reviewer I read basically says the movie Bucket List is a no potential non-heartwarming story its participants have drowned in self-importance and near-comic dramatic anxiety. Or something like that. So…I won’t go.
I never like the movies that actors, directors, and critics like anyway. You may like them but I don’t. Sophie’s Choice, Pattoowy! (I am trying to come up with a spelling that says “I spit at it, this is so bad), The French Lieutenant’s Woman, My Left Foot, The Pianist, Lost on Translation. Brokeback Mountain GAG! BARF! HARRRUUUMMMPH! And so on.
But rather than make this entry a commentary on the state of cinematic arts in today’s society, I wanted to say something about the concept of a bucket list, (Things to do before you kick the bucket.)
I have seen several people’s lists and most of them are no more than an expanded New Year’s resolution. What would you do if you knew the time of your demise was 3 months tops? Every one of the lists I see deal with the dying person doing things they always wanted to do. Things like ski in the
Needless to say, a person would need to be in pretty good physical condition to do most of these. Hey, you are sick enough to die in three months, Bucko. Where are you getting the strength to do all of these things? And, where is the money coming from? Savings? Money your family will need to go on without you? Life Insurance? You probably don’t have an excess for your family AND the list. You sure can’t get life insurance after you find out you are buying the farm.
I guess you could steal the money from some evil rich person or company but then, you take the risk of being caught. Wow, what a way to spend your last days, sitting in some 8 by 8 concrete cubical with a cellmate named Animal who hasn’t had any conjugalative activity since the summer of ’89 and the first thing he says to you is, “Hey, good looking, you want’a slow dance?
Well, since you asked, I will give you four things off my list. I have eighteen but I only wish to share the top four.
1. Go through everything personal and throw out the stuff I have been saving since 1975 just in case I might need it some day. Chances are if I haven’t needed it in the last 40 years, I won’t be needing it in the next 90 days and I don’t want somebody else going through my stuff and making fun of it.
2. See how many time and in how many ways I can say “I love you” to my lovely bride and my three girls.
3. Tell George Huffman I was the one who fed Oxydol laundry soap to his pet pig, Sally. This is only if he is still alive. He would be about a hundred and three now.
4. Sell everything of value I own that my lovely bride wouldn’t want or need and take her and the girls and there families to
5. I know I said four but I just thought of this one. Eat ice cream for every meal entree and key lime pie for every desert.
The rest are just as sappy but if you knew me, well, you know me.
And that’s the way I see it, so that must be how it is.
Okay, that was a geek-check. If you came up with that answer without looking it up, get off my blog site. I mean it . Get off right now. I have a certain level of standards here and...who am I kidding? If you have been reading some of my blog babble, you already know I have no standards, so come on, let’s kiss and make up. (Uh guys, this only is a metaphor, plus, it was only aimed at the girls, okay?)
Life Lesson 394 (We skipped a few but this one just grabbed me.)
Not too long ago I read about a stalker who stalked Bebe Neuwirth a the actress that played Lilith Crane on Cheers, and then yesterday I saw a TV show about stalkers. Movie and TV stars are most often the objects of some twisted mind’s fantasy and obsessive affection. The guy who killed Rebecca Schaeffer, the actress from the My Sister Sam show, wrote her a letter every day for almost seven months and twice tried to get into the set where she was working. Nobody ever thought he might be a threat?
All the time, we see people obsessing on celebs.
Speaking of teenagers, and such, I have not been following the Britney saga as closely as most people seem to be. I can’t get away from it so I might as well have a little say right here and now.
She debuts her album with a video of her in a sexy school girl uniform. It does not take a psychologist or psychiatrist to figure out the video is INTENDED to titillate and arouse potential music buyers. You know as well as I that every sex crazy in the nation gets worked up over just that sort of thing. Young, innocent, forbidden hot as all get-out scantily clad sex selling vixen is the image these video producers had in mind and neither she nor her family screamed foul before the airing.
Then you have the woman that broke into Dave Letterman’s house and another guy who broke into Paul McCartney’s mansion in
Princess Dianna died and the whole world mourned like they had just spoke to her on the phone the other day or had had her over for dinner just last Sunday. Marilyn, Elvis, Lennon, JFK, the list goes on and on.
People are so gullible, if that’s the word, or maybe they are desperate for real friends. So many people adore and idolize celebs who would not waist a drop of Perrier on them is they were dieing of thirst and wouldn’t bother to spit on them if they were on fire. They wouldn’t walk around the block to save a fan’s life. These celebs would rather duck into a limo than say hi.
As a side note, I also find it odd that people who put every effort, hope and dream into becoming an idol, a star with millions of screaming, adoring fans turn around and gripe when they attain the stardom, they obsessed to get, and then complain about not having any privacy.
If they hate being perused by fans and the ‘rotzies so much, why not stay out of the clubs, quit making movies, move out of California and New York. Move to Hot Biscuit,
Thinking these things through at a young age, I decided the fame and fortune route was not for me. How fortunate for you.
January 4, 2008
Day 22,200
Well, as you have probably already heard, I didn’t fair well in the
I did not do that well among the 18 to 104 year-olds and didn’t pick up any support among men. I had a problem carrying the women’s vote and didn’t get any of the Republican, Democrat or Independent’s support but a guy in Bossier City, Louisiana said he almost voted for me but the voices in his beard told him to vote for Biden instead.
My campaign manager tells me that we need to be spending more than the $0 we earmarked for
I can certainly see why somebody would make up a lie about us actually putting a man on the moon or there not being a tri-lateral commission,
bravenet.com