December 2012 Blog Posts (40)

I recent read an article that reduced the American dream to six elements: owning a home, owning a car, providing education for your children, having health care insurance, going on a vacation at least once a year and providing for your retirement. I don't quibble with these goals but I do get concerned that that…

Like most of America and other parts of the world, I am saddened that a 20 year old man/boy decided to take guns from the family home and destroy 28 lives, killing children and adults at the local grade school.   Now I lived in Connecticut for a number of years and know the area and the people there.  My brother still lives a few miles from the site of the…

A recent incident is in the news about a former US military man who took a hunting rifle into Mexico and was immediately arrested with the authorities claiming it was oversize.  According to the story, the rifle was checked by US authorities as being allowable under Mexican law but he was arrested anyway and has spent a couple of months in a Mexican jail.   I would…

I read books.  My count is well over 150 per year as my latest tally for 2012 is 156 so far.  I just added my latest entry, "Wallbanger" by Alice Clayton.  http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15858248-wallbanger  Now this is not the usual genre that consumes me.  My last read was "Winter of the…

I'll try to keep the story with this photo short...it's a story of doing something right as a parent. And we all know there is never any certainty about that...

Years ago, when my kids were much younger, and well into the "Harry Potter" thing...the same time I had filed for divorce...I was tracking with the most serious intent, the creation…

Divorce issues with custody should not involve children. We should change the law to take children out of the equation. As a public teacher, I have watched traumatized children from bitter divorces come in and out of school, their lives devastated by their parent’s divorce. They are used by courts to keep the system well oiled.  Children needed protection due to child labor, they again need help. If a child can be arrested at the age of 10 by the criminal court, they are intelligent enough…

I took my Mayan calendar down from the wall yesterday.  I want to keep it close so I can follow the days to the end of the world.  It's coming on December 21, so I am told.  There is controversy as the Mayans have not survived to tell us what they…

Right now the main issue between Republicans and Democrats on the fiscal cliff negotiations is raising the maximum tax on regular income from 35% to 39%.  Obama is on record as having agreed that it made no difference to him if it were done by closing loopholes but now insists it has to be an adjustment in the rate. This was a key election promise by him.   OK, on the…

It's Monday morning and I am not going to work.  I have been saying that for 15 years, as I took early retirement back in 1997.  But since the curse of Eve, mankind and womankind has been forced to do labor  as a sort of punishment. At least that is the Biblical version.  Most of us labor because we want to be able to afford a good life. Others labor because that's the…

When I was a kid I never had to seek out exercise. It was all around me. I got up in the wee hours, got the grain for the horses, walked to the pasture, made sure they had water, gave them hay in the winter, grained them as necessary, mucked out stalls, went back, gathered chicken eggs (in the summer), did the rest of my chores, got cleaned up and either went to school or did more chores. I got my own breakfast most of the time because everyone was busy. It was life on the farm and it was…

I look at them...

...Our children

Separate and strong

And with more power against us 

Than any God...

 …

Over the years just about every American has had drilled into their heads the "joy of victory and the agony of defeat" as a measurement of their life.  We are thought that winning is everything and to the victor goes the spoils.  But is this the best outcome?  



I was a negotiator for a part of my life, where I was put into daily situations where outcome was…

Nope, nobody could extend a warm welcome like good ol' Porter Wagoner.

Well, no.....somebody probably could, like Emily Post, or someone of that ilk.

Anyhoo, here's Porter.

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Is it a Christmas Tree or a Holiday Tree?

This was an issue that rose it's ugly head in Rhode Island recently, as Governor Lincoln Chaffe refused to call it a Christmas Tree as he considered the term politically incorrect.  He called it a "Holiday Tree." …

Saw this on FB and thought I would share:

Author Unknown

A carrot, an egg, and a cup of coffee...You will never look at a cup of coffee the same way again.

A young woman went to her mother and told her about her life and how things were so hard for her. She did not know how she was going to make it and wanted to give up, She was tired of fighting and struggling. It seemed as one problem was solved, a new one arose.

Her mother took her to the kitchen. She filled…

He sat at the head of the kitchen table bathed in the almost garish light of a single bare bulb directly over the table, and like his Mother before him he sipped a little of the morning’s first cup of coffee from the saucer instead of the cup. He always drank two cups, no more, no less of hot, black, percolated coffee and smoked one cigarette rolled from Prince Albert tobacco in a pouch while sitting at that table. He never said a word as he sat there, his chair turned sideways to the table,…

As the Japanese were bombing Pearl Harbor, in western China some Americans had been fighting to save that country for a couple of years.  Here  is my version of their story:

I had occasion to spend  a month in China about 12 years ago in a cultural exchange program, as I attended universities there and studied the culture.  My favorite city was Kunming, where I…

I've had a ponytail since my college days, college years actually, 1963 until around 1969. As the years passed I've lost the hair on top of my head and have braided my ponytail. Yesterday I went to a 'hair salon' and was greeted by a young cuttress who escorted me to an empty barber chair. I didnt let her lime green striped hair fill me with trepidation (who am I to be judgemental?). I told her I wanted an inch taken off my ponytail and the rest trimmed. I didn't want the hair on the sides…

Republicans failed to ratify the United Nations treaty to protect the disabled around the world. A majority of Republican senators voted against Americans and others with disabilities, including US veterans by failing to ratify the measure which was based on US law. Bob Dole, who came to the senate floor after a recent hospital stay, was present in the chamber to watch the majority of his own party fail to ratify a treaty which would support Senator Dole's dignity and that of others with…