Research is being done in so many areas with fascinating conclusions, though they are not always accurate. One, I would not have thought of, is that pain hurts more when the person inflicting it means it. Research was discussed in Science Daily on 12/20/08. "Researchers at Harvard University have discovered that our experience of pain depends on whether we think someone caused the pain intentionally. In their study, participants who believed they were getting an electrical shock from another person on purpose, rather than accidentally, rated the very same shock as more painful. Participants seemed to get used to shocks that were delivered unintentionally, but those given on purpose had a fresh sting every time." The research, published in the current issue of Psychological Science, was led by Kurt Gray, a graduate student in psychology, along with Daniel Wegner, professor of psychology.
While I make no claim that I can control my own heartbeat, make my knee grow more cartilage, or all that wonderful stuff that biofeedback has helped some people do, I find the concept interesting. For example, when an abusive husband beats his wife and it hurts, does the memory of it hurt less when he tells her he didn't mean it?
Selflessness -- Core Of All Major World Religions -- Has Neuropsychological Connection "All spiritual experiences are based in the brain. That statement is truer than ever before, according to a University of Missouri neuropsychologist. An MU study has data to support a neuropsychological model that proposes spiritual experiences associated with selflessness are related to decreased activity in the right parietal lobe of the brain. Read the full story
Selflessness (having no concern for self according to Merriam-Webster) cannot be a good thing in my mind. It goes against all instinct of self preservation and should not be confused with selfishness (selfishness (noun) Date: 1640
1: concerned excessively or exclusively with oneself : seeking or concentrating on one's own advantage, pleasure, or well-being without regard for others 2: arising from concern with one's own welfare or advantage in disregard of others which most people would not admire.
Quoting from the article: "Transcendence, feelings of universal unity and decreased sense of self, is a core tenet of all major religions. Meditation and prayer are the primary vehicles by which such spiritual transcendence is achieved."
Having never sought a decreased sense of self, I am at a loss to see why that is desirable, other than escapism, which also doesn't sound too healthy to personal growth.
The article further explains: "People with these selfless spiritual experiences also are more psychologically healthy, especially if they have positive beliefs that there is a God or higher power who loves them, Johnstone said." Naturally, there is no indication on what scale those people are measured as 'more psychologically healthy.' Many people I bump into believe everything they read and assume all research is done scientifically and with accurate conclusions. Would that it would be so, but alas, it is not always the case. It brings to mind the blue-collar comedian who says, "There is no cure for stupid". Apparently, at times, education and immersing one in truth, facts and logic is also not enough. I urge everyone to carefully question conclusions they read as scientific and, especially, the editorial notes stating conclusions that are not reached by the research. It presents dangers of conflicting conclusions which is REALLY confusing to the readers who believe all printed words!
Reader, beware!!!
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
AN EVENING FOR TWO WIDOWERS AND A WIDOW
Two widowers and a widow, connected to each other by mutual friendship with a friend who had died a few months ago. We had talked about getting together for a drink as each of us had individually had with her. We talked about our friend who had been there, in her own way, for all of us as we tried to be for her.
We three were born roughly in the same era, got together tonight, not sure where the evening would take us. Several interesting observations occurred. One is that 'old' acquaintances can become 'new' friends. After a drink and lots of chatting, (not too far akin from the way dogs get acquainted but in the human version, verbally) it was time to eat, so out to a restaurant we went.
The conversation rolled on. First it was chit chat with a few laughs thrown in when something reminded one of us of a joke. It is amazing how less guarded people are when there is nothing but friendship to be handled. We reminisced about our individual lives and families, our professional training, how we liked our jobs, and what we want from life now that our spouses no longer share it with us. Translating that last sentence, we reminisced but shared the pains as well as the joys in our individual lives and families, discussed our professional training to confirm, that we once had an identity as a professional, looked back at when we felt valued and contributed, not just used and tolerated, and lastly, what we want out of life is to just go on living longer in health and with a working mind, not a burden to our loved ones.
Once you have reached the top, stayed there as long as you were able, the only direction is down. You can hurry on down, skid, and land in a useless heap at the bottom or you can go down slowly, planning the rest of your different life as you reach for the level ground. We who are back on that level ground have no need for one-upsmanship, no need for exaggeration or impressing others like us. We shared that out goal for whatever life is left us, is to laugh as much as possible.
In contradiction to current myths, most seniors who are financially independent do not wish to draw another into intimacy of relationship. They like their own home and space where their happiest memories live on with them, and, I suspect believe, 'friends are a nice place to visit, but you wouldn't want to live there.' I look forward to more enjoyable evenings with my friends.
Noted was the degree of resignation to our age and how fortunate we three are to not be too limited by age yet. We were/are an engineer with an MBA, a manufacturer's rep and a psychotherapist. It is fascinating to follow how differently we see and deal with our worlds. We complemented and complimented each other and told bawdy jokes. We laughed and made ourselves feel good.
We three were born roughly in the same era, got together tonight, not sure where the evening would take us. Several interesting observations occurred. One is that 'old' acquaintances can become 'new' friends. After a drink and lots of chatting, (not too far akin from the way dogs get acquainted but in the human version, verbally) it was time to eat, so out to a restaurant we went.
The conversation rolled on. First it was chit chat with a few laughs thrown in when something reminded one of us of a joke. It is amazing how less guarded people are when there is nothing but friendship to be handled. We reminisced about our individual lives and families, our professional training, how we liked our jobs, and what we want from life now that our spouses no longer share it with us. Translating that last sentence, we reminisced but shared the pains as well as the joys in our individual lives and families, discussed our professional training to confirm, that we once had an identity as a professional, looked back at when we felt valued and contributed, not just used and tolerated, and lastly, what we want out of life is to just go on living longer in health and with a working mind, not a burden to our loved ones.
Once you have reached the top, stayed there as long as you were able, the only direction is down. You can hurry on down, skid, and land in a useless heap at the bottom or you can go down slowly, planning the rest of your different life as you reach for the level ground. We who are back on that level ground have no need for one-upsmanship, no need for exaggeration or impressing others like us. We shared that out goal for whatever life is left us, is to laugh as much as possible.
In contradiction to current myths, most seniors who are financially independent do not wish to draw another into intimacy of relationship. They like their own home and space where their happiest memories live on with them, and, I suspect believe, 'friends are a nice place to visit, but you wouldn't want to live there.' I look forward to more enjoyable evenings with my friends.
Noted was the degree of resignation to our age and how fortunate we three are to not be too limited by age yet. We were/are an engineer with an MBA, a manufacturer's rep and a psychotherapist. It is fascinating to follow how differently we see and deal with our worlds. We complemented and complimented each other and told bawdy jokes. We laughed and made ourselves feel good.
Monday, January 5, 2009
P.U.-litzer Prizes for 2008 from Alternet
Announcing the 2008 P.U.-litzer Prizes
By Jeff Cohen and Norman Solomon, AlterNet. Posted December 30, 2008.
"The year's stinkiest media performances.
Now in their 17th year, the P.U.-litzer Prizes recognize some of the nation's stinkiest media performances. As the judges for these annual awards, we do our best to identify the most-deserving recipients of this unwelcome plaudit.
And now, the P.U.-litzer Prizes for 2008:
HOT FOR OBAMA PRIZE -- MSNBC's Chris Matthews: This award sparked fierce competition, but the cinch came on the day Barack Obama swept the Potomac Primary in February -- when Chris Matthews spoke of "the feeling most people get when they hear Barack Obama's speech. My, I felt this thrill going up my leg. I mean, I don't have that too often."
BEYOND PARODY PRIZE -- Fox News: In August, a FoxNews.com teaser for the "O'Reilly Factor" program said: "Obama bombarded by personal attacks. Are they legit? Ann Coulter comments."
UPSIDE-DOWN "ELITIST" AWARD -- New York Times columnist David Brooks: For months, high-paid Beltway journalists competed with each other in advising candidate Obama on how to mingle with working-class folks. Ubiquitous pundit Brooks won the prize for his wisdom on reaching "less-educated people, downscale people," offered on MSNBC in June: "Obama's problem is he doesn't seem like the kind of guy who could go into an Applebee's salad bar and people think he fits in naturally there. And so he's had to change to try to be more like that Applebee's guy." It would indeed be hard for Obama to fit in naturally at an Applebee's salad bar. Applebee's restaurants don't have salad bars.
GUTTER BALL PUNDITRY AWARD -- Chris Matthews of MSNBC's "Hardball": In program after program during the spring, Matthews repeatedly questioned whether Obama could connect with "regular" voters -- "regular" meaning voters who are white or "who actually do know how to bowl." He once said of Obama: "This gets very ethnic, but the fact that he's good at basketball doesn't surprise anybody. But the fact that he's that terrible at bowling does make you wonder."
STRAIGHT SKINNY PRIZE -- Wall Street Journal reporter Amy Chozick: In August, the Journal's Chozick went beyond the standard elitist charge to offer yet another reason that average voters might be wary of Obama. Below the headline "Too Fit to Be President?" she wrote of Obama: "Despite his visits to waffle houses, ice-cream parlors and greasy-spoon diners around the country, his slim physique might have some Americans wondering whether he is truly like them." Chozick asked: "In a nation in which 66 percent of the voting-age population is overweight and 32 percent is obese, could Sen. Obama's skinniness be a liability?" To support her argument, she quoted supporters of Sen. Hillary Clinton. One said: "He needs to put some meat on his bones." Another, prodded by Chozick, wrote on a Yahoo bulletin board: "I won't vote for any beanpole guy."
"OUR CENTER-RIGHT NATION" AWARD -- Newsweek editor Jon Meacham: With Democrats in the process of winning big in 2008 as they had in 2006, a media chorus erupted warning Democratic politicians away from their promises of change. Behind the warnings was the repeated claim that America is essentially a conservative country. In an election-eve Newsweek cover story with the subheadline "America remains a center-right nation -- a fact that a President Obama would forget at his peril," Meacham argued that the liberalism of even repeatedly re-elected FDR offended voters. And the editor claimed that a leftward trend in election results and issues polling means little -- as would Obama's victory after months of charges that he stood for radical change. Evidence seemed to lose out to journalists' fears that campaign promises might actually be kept."
Note: Jeff Cohen is founder of the media watch group FAIR, former TV pundit and author of Cable News Confidential: My Misadventures in Corporate Media.
Norman Solomon's latest book, Made Love, Got War: Close Encounters with America's Warfare State (PoliPointPress) is available now.
By Jeff Cohen and Norman Solomon, AlterNet. Posted December 30, 2008.
"The year's stinkiest media performances.
Now in their 17th year, the P.U.-litzer Prizes recognize some of the nation's stinkiest media performances. As the judges for these annual awards, we do our best to identify the most-deserving recipients of this unwelcome plaudit.
And now, the P.U.-litzer Prizes for 2008:
HOT FOR OBAMA PRIZE -- MSNBC's Chris Matthews: This award sparked fierce competition, but the cinch came on the day Barack Obama swept the Potomac Primary in February -- when Chris Matthews spoke of "the feeling most people get when they hear Barack Obama's speech. My, I felt this thrill going up my leg. I mean, I don't have that too often."
BEYOND PARODY PRIZE -- Fox News: In August, a FoxNews.com teaser for the "O'Reilly Factor" program said: "Obama bombarded by personal attacks. Are they legit? Ann Coulter comments."
UPSIDE-DOWN "ELITIST" AWARD -- New York Times columnist David Brooks: For months, high-paid Beltway journalists competed with each other in advising candidate Obama on how to mingle with working-class folks. Ubiquitous pundit Brooks won the prize for his wisdom on reaching "less-educated people, downscale people," offered on MSNBC in June: "Obama's problem is he doesn't seem like the kind of guy who could go into an Applebee's salad bar and people think he fits in naturally there. And so he's had to change to try to be more like that Applebee's guy." It would indeed be hard for Obama to fit in naturally at an Applebee's salad bar. Applebee's restaurants don't have salad bars.
GUTTER BALL PUNDITRY AWARD -- Chris Matthews of MSNBC's "Hardball": In program after program during the spring, Matthews repeatedly questioned whether Obama could connect with "regular" voters -- "regular" meaning voters who are white or "who actually do know how to bowl." He once said of Obama: "This gets very ethnic, but the fact that he's good at basketball doesn't surprise anybody. But the fact that he's that terrible at bowling does make you wonder."
STRAIGHT SKINNY PRIZE -- Wall Street Journal reporter Amy Chozick: In August, the Journal's Chozick went beyond the standard elitist charge to offer yet another reason that average voters might be wary of Obama. Below the headline "Too Fit to Be President?" she wrote of Obama: "Despite his visits to waffle houses, ice-cream parlors and greasy-spoon diners around the country, his slim physique might have some Americans wondering whether he is truly like them." Chozick asked: "In a nation in which 66 percent of the voting-age population is overweight and 32 percent is obese, could Sen. Obama's skinniness be a liability?" To support her argument, she quoted supporters of Sen. Hillary Clinton. One said: "He needs to put some meat on his bones." Another, prodded by Chozick, wrote on a Yahoo bulletin board: "I won't vote for any beanpole guy."
"OUR CENTER-RIGHT NATION" AWARD -- Newsweek editor Jon Meacham: With Democrats in the process of winning big in 2008 as they had in 2006, a media chorus erupted warning Democratic politicians away from their promises of change. Behind the warnings was the repeated claim that America is essentially a conservative country. In an election-eve Newsweek cover story with the subheadline "America remains a center-right nation -- a fact that a President Obama would forget at his peril," Meacham argued that the liberalism of even repeatedly re-elected FDR offended voters. And the editor claimed that a leftward trend in election results and issues polling means little -- as would Obama's victory after months of charges that he stood for radical change. Evidence seemed to lose out to journalists' fears that campaign promises might actually be kept."
Note: Jeff Cohen is founder of the media watch group FAIR, former TV pundit and author of Cable News Confidential: My Misadventures in Corporate Media.
Norman Solomon's latest book, Made Love, Got War: Close Encounters with America's Warfare State (PoliPointPress) is available now.
CREATIVITY STARTS WITH IDEAS AND WHAT YOU'VE GOT
BBC, today, has a special article and video on an artist who uses sticky tape to sculpt.
Watch the video and read the article. "An up-and-coming Japanese artist has devoted his life to creating and spreading art using adhesive tape.
Japan's Nerima Art Museum, which was built upon the grounds of a company which went on to become the country's first tape manufacturer Nichiban, is exhibiting his work.
Mauricio Olmedo-Perez reports.
European Art causes controversy.
"An art installation at the European Union Council building in Brussels, which is meant to poke fun at European stereotypes, is proving to be highly controversial.
The artwork, depicting the 27 EU countries, was commissioned by the Czech government, to coincide with their EU presidency. However it has left many people questioning, is it art?" Mark Mardell reports.
Czech bounces off people for art. "A Czech performance artist who brushes past people in the street is one of the attractions at an exhibition in Florida.
The BBC's Andy Gallacher watched Jiri Kovanda in action at Art Basel Miami Beach"
It seems that those with breath and talent will always create something of interest.
Watch the video and read the article. "An up-and-coming Japanese artist has devoted his life to creating and spreading art using adhesive tape.
Japan's Nerima Art Museum, which was built upon the grounds of a company which went on to become the country's first tape manufacturer Nichiban, is exhibiting his work.
Mauricio Olmedo-Perez reports.
European Art causes controversy.
"An art installation at the European Union Council building in Brussels, which is meant to poke fun at European stereotypes, is proving to be highly controversial.
The artwork, depicting the 27 EU countries, was commissioned by the Czech government, to coincide with their EU presidency. However it has left many people questioning, is it art?" Mark Mardell reports.
Czech bounces off people for art. "A Czech performance artist who brushes past people in the street is one of the attractions at an exhibition in Florida.
The BBC's Andy Gallacher watched Jiri Kovanda in action at Art Basel Miami Beach"
It seems that those with breath and talent will always create something of interest.
Sunday, January 4, 2009
ERRORS IN JUDGEMENT, ETHICS, AND JUST PLAIN GREED
Dynegy Abandons Plans for 5 New Coal Plants
Posted by Bruce Nilles, Sierra Club at 3:11 PM on January 2, 2009.
Chalk one up for the environmentalists. It's about time someone wins against the evil of the greedy ones who care nothing about the health and lungs of the people of the USA.
At Plant in Coal Ash Spill, Toxic Deposits by the Ton
Article Tools Sponsored By
By SHAILA DEWAN
Published: December 29, 2008
"In a single year, a coal-fired electric plant deposited more than 2.2 million pounds of toxic materials in a holding pond that failed last week, flooding 300 acres in East Tennessee, according to a 2007 inventory filed with the Environmental Protection Agency.
The inventory, disclosed by the Tennessee Valley Authority on Monday at the request of The New York Times, showed that in just one year, the plant’s byproducts included 45,000 pounds of arsenic, 49,000 pounds of lead, 1.4 million pounds of barium, 91,000 pounds of chromium and 140,000 pounds of manganese. Those metals can cause cancer, liver damage and neurological complications, among other health problems."
One can compare the government, especially with the research and scientific findings knowledge in the past few years, as being the worst kind of selfish parent, killing its children, offering no medical care for those who were dying, because of governing greed. However, they are not the sole bad influences. This administration has allowed many corporations to behave totally immorally.
A 12/15/08 "Siemens AG and Three Subsidiaries Plead Guilty to Foreign Corrupt Practices Act Violations and Agree to Pay $450 Million in Combined Criminal Fines" The DOJ released details of the substantial fine Siemens finally paid. "According to court documents, beginning in the mid-1990s, Siemens AG engaged in systematic efforts to falsify its corporate books and records and knowingly failed to implement and circumvent existing internal controls. As a result of Siemens AG’s knowing failures in and circumvention of internal controls, from the time of its listing on the New York Stock Exchange on March 12, 2001, through approximately 2007, Siemens AG made payments totaling approximately $1.36 billion through various mechanisms. Of this amount, approximately $554.5 million was paid for unknown purposes, including approximately $341 million in direct payments to business consultants for unknown purposes. The remaining $805.5 million of this amount was intended in whole or in part as corrupt payments to foreign officials through the payment mechanisms, which included cash desks and slush funds." This is only one of the gross losses of revenue due the US because of the lack of oversight, among other things.
Was the 'Credit Crunch' a Myth Used to Sell a Trillion-Dollar Scam?
By Joshua Holland, AlterNet. Posted December 29, 2008.
There is something approaching a consensus that the Paulson Plan -- also known as the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP -- was a boondoggle of an intervention that's flailed from one approach to the next, with little oversight and less effect on the financial meltdown.
But perhaps even more troubling than the ad hoc nature of its implementation is the suspicion that has recently emerged that TARP -- hundreds of billions of dollars worth so far -- was sold to Congress and the public based on a Big Lie.
President George W. Bush, fabulist-in-chief, articulated the rationale for the program in that trademark way of his -- as if addressing a nation of slow-witted 12-year-olds -- on Sept. 24: "Major financial institutions have teetered on the edge of collapse ... [and] began holding onto their money, and lending dried up, and the gears of the American financial system began grinding to a halt." Bush said that if Congress didn't give Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson the trillion dollars (give or take) for which he was asking, the results would be disastrous: "Even if you have good credit history, it would be more difficult for you to get the loans you need to buy a car or send your children to college. And ultimately, our country could experience a long and painful recession." You can read the entire story.
Posted by Bruce Nilles, Sierra Club at 3:11 PM on January 2, 2009.
Chalk one up for the environmentalists. It's about time someone wins against the evil of the greedy ones who care nothing about the health and lungs of the people of the USA.
At Plant in Coal Ash Spill, Toxic Deposits by the Ton
Article Tools Sponsored By
By SHAILA DEWAN
Published: December 29, 2008
"In a single year, a coal-fired electric plant deposited more than 2.2 million pounds of toxic materials in a holding pond that failed last week, flooding 300 acres in East Tennessee, according to a 2007 inventory filed with the Environmental Protection Agency.
The inventory, disclosed by the Tennessee Valley Authority on Monday at the request of The New York Times, showed that in just one year, the plant’s byproducts included 45,000 pounds of arsenic, 49,000 pounds of lead, 1.4 million pounds of barium, 91,000 pounds of chromium and 140,000 pounds of manganese. Those metals can cause cancer, liver damage and neurological complications, among other health problems."
One can compare the government, especially with the research and scientific findings knowledge in the past few years, as being the worst kind of selfish parent, killing its children, offering no medical care for those who were dying, because of governing greed. However, they are not the sole bad influences. This administration has allowed many corporations to behave totally immorally.
A 12/15/08 "Siemens AG and Three Subsidiaries Plead Guilty to Foreign Corrupt Practices Act Violations and Agree to Pay $450 Million in Combined Criminal Fines" The DOJ released details of the substantial fine Siemens finally paid. "According to court documents, beginning in the mid-1990s, Siemens AG engaged in systematic efforts to falsify its corporate books and records and knowingly failed to implement and circumvent existing internal controls. As a result of Siemens AG’s knowing failures in and circumvention of internal controls, from the time of its listing on the New York Stock Exchange on March 12, 2001, through approximately 2007, Siemens AG made payments totaling approximately $1.36 billion through various mechanisms. Of this amount, approximately $554.5 million was paid for unknown purposes, including approximately $341 million in direct payments to business consultants for unknown purposes. The remaining $805.5 million of this amount was intended in whole or in part as corrupt payments to foreign officials through the payment mechanisms, which included cash desks and slush funds." This is only one of the gross losses of revenue due the US because of the lack of oversight, among other things.
Was the 'Credit Crunch' a Myth Used to Sell a Trillion-Dollar Scam?
By Joshua Holland, AlterNet. Posted December 29, 2008.
There is something approaching a consensus that the Paulson Plan -- also known as the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP -- was a boondoggle of an intervention that's flailed from one approach to the next, with little oversight and less effect on the financial meltdown.
But perhaps even more troubling than the ad hoc nature of its implementation is the suspicion that has recently emerged that TARP -- hundreds of billions of dollars worth so far -- was sold to Congress and the public based on a Big Lie.
President George W. Bush, fabulist-in-chief, articulated the rationale for the program in that trademark way of his -- as if addressing a nation of slow-witted 12-year-olds -- on Sept. 24: "Major financial institutions have teetered on the edge of collapse ... [and] began holding onto their money, and lending dried up, and the gears of the American financial system began grinding to a halt." Bush said that if Congress didn't give Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson the trillion dollars (give or take) for which he was asking, the results would be disastrous: "Even if you have good credit history, it would be more difficult for you to get the loans you need to buy a car or send your children to college. And ultimately, our country could experience a long and painful recession." You can read the entire story.
Saturday, January 3, 2009
IS OPTIMISM A CHOICE?
While philosophers continue to argue about man's free will, one can wonder about whether optimism is a choice or determined by one's chemical make-up. I ask the question, having many years of work with clinically depressed people. There is no way that they can drum up optimism when their world looks and feels so dark.
So when I came across an article addressing just this issue, it caught my attention.
2009: Now for the Hard Part
Posted by Peggy Drexler, Huffington Post at 3:33 AM on January 1, 2009 "Is the glass half empty, half full -- or did somebody take the glass and smash it against the wall? In times like these, optimism is a decision. " This author believes it is a choice. I would challenge that thesis. I don't believe it is a choice but I do believe that people, even pessimists, can come to trust that change and hope is possible. There may have been optimists that helped elect Obama, but I would assume that there were also lots of pessimists who voted for him as well. The message of hope and directives for change, rather than the empty rhetoric we had seen for eight years, won the day.
"Only a fool expects to be happy all the time". Robertson Davies Is it pessimistic to know this?
“If you will call your troubles experiences, and remember that every experience develops some latent force within you, you will grow vigorous and happy, however adverse your circumstances may seem to be.”
” John Heywood Having learned a lesson from experience doesn't seem to make one an optimist, either.
If I were to try to define the medium in which optimism thrives, it would be in a person who has self-confidence and knows the simple truth: "When life hands you a lemon, you can make lemonade."
So when I came across an article addressing just this issue, it caught my attention.
2009: Now for the Hard Part
Posted by Peggy Drexler, Huffington Post at 3:33 AM on January 1, 2009 "Is the glass half empty, half full -- or did somebody take the glass and smash it against the wall? In times like these, optimism is a decision. " This author believes it is a choice. I would challenge that thesis. I don't believe it is a choice but I do believe that people, even pessimists, can come to trust that change and hope is possible. There may have been optimists that helped elect Obama, but I would assume that there were also lots of pessimists who voted for him as well. The message of hope and directives for change, rather than the empty rhetoric we had seen for eight years, won the day.
"Only a fool expects to be happy all the time". Robertson Davies Is it pessimistic to know this?
“If you will call your troubles experiences, and remember that every experience develops some latent force within you, you will grow vigorous and happy, however adverse your circumstances may seem to be.”
” John Heywood Having learned a lesson from experience doesn't seem to make one an optimist, either.
If I were to try to define the medium in which optimism thrives, it would be in a person who has self-confidence and knows the simple truth: "When life hands you a lemon, you can make lemonade."
Friday, January 2, 2009
HANDWRITING ON THE WALL BEING IGNORED
The other day I was engaged in a conversation about shopping and commented that I have stopped going to Malls. Since we had been discussing the very poor season for merchants, I was asked why I wasn't supporting them. When I took my finger out of the dike, I watched today's world pour out. Merchants have brought defeat unto themselves by wasting too much money on advertising, fancy stores and trim, and too much piled onto overhead charges. Has no one observed the success of warehouse stores like Costco and online stores like Amazon? The response to me about not supporting this dying breed made me think about the reasons that people today cannot deal with change which means that some businesses will no longer work. When autos came in, blacksmiths, in numbers, went out. Makers of lanterns lost business when electricity came into homes. Printers lost business when computers started desktop publishing and typesetting also went out. Newspapers are on their way out because the managing editors think that firing their experienced and higher paid reporters will save money. Do they not realize they also threw away the reason for people to buy their papers?
While there still may be a few holdouts who don't use computers, they are also dying out as a breed. Pretty soon they, too, will be forced to get a computer or remain out of touch with the real world and unable to get information or buy what they need.
It is already $5 cheaper to buy flights online than on the phone and has been for a few years now. Even pre-op registration was done online for me the other day and saved me filling in forms in the office where I was less likely to have the information I needed.
If people in business choose to have their heads in the sand and pretend to be surprised when predicted results finally reach them, they cannot expect everyone to bail them out as the Detroit three are trying to do. A friend said that there is as much manufacturing in the USA as there ever was. I asked what the statistic was based on, realizing that it was not scaled to the larger number of people there are who live in the US today. With more people there are more deaths and accidents than ever before, but again, the key is what percentage of the population in total this represents. More often now, I realize that few people can really grasp a whole picture or system, able to see only one facet at a time.
Deregulation allowed CEOs to become great managers if all they were looking for was the bottom line of profit. It didn't matter if outsourcing cheated the US workers of income and jobs, of tax revenue, or that it violated every moral obligation to the workers to value them as the heart of an organization which would take care of the company if the company took care of them. When the economy was good, the founder of Starbucks could afford to charge more for his product in order to take care of his employees. His product at the time was unique and people who had money were willing to pay for it. But, when the economy slowed down and people saw their Starbucks as a luxury, it had to be cut back. So did a lot of the goodies for workers that had been built into the system.
Americans Continue To Eat Out Despite Recession
US Economy Poll (1/1) - "Synopsis 60% of Americans say they ate dinner out at a restaurant at least once during the prior week, similar to the 64% recorded in December 2005 and down only slightly from 66% in December 2003" Does this give the reader an idea that the quality of restaurant has also gone down. The gourmet restaurants now have fewer lines and reservations while fast food enjoys plenty of business. They are all restaurants but, is the picture the same if one looks at the numbers rather than comparing those to quality of restaurants patronized?
While there still may be a few holdouts who don't use computers, they are also dying out as a breed. Pretty soon they, too, will be forced to get a computer or remain out of touch with the real world and unable to get information or buy what they need.
It is already $5 cheaper to buy flights online than on the phone and has been for a few years now. Even pre-op registration was done online for me the other day and saved me filling in forms in the office where I was less likely to have the information I needed.
If people in business choose to have their heads in the sand and pretend to be surprised when predicted results finally reach them, they cannot expect everyone to bail them out as the Detroit three are trying to do. A friend said that there is as much manufacturing in the USA as there ever was. I asked what the statistic was based on, realizing that it was not scaled to the larger number of people there are who live in the US today. With more people there are more deaths and accidents than ever before, but again, the key is what percentage of the population in total this represents. More often now, I realize that few people can really grasp a whole picture or system, able to see only one facet at a time.
Deregulation allowed CEOs to become great managers if all they were looking for was the bottom line of profit. It didn't matter if outsourcing cheated the US workers of income and jobs, of tax revenue, or that it violated every moral obligation to the workers to value them as the heart of an organization which would take care of the company if the company took care of them. When the economy was good, the founder of Starbucks could afford to charge more for his product in order to take care of his employees. His product at the time was unique and people who had money were willing to pay for it. But, when the economy slowed down and people saw their Starbucks as a luxury, it had to be cut back. So did a lot of the goodies for workers that had been built into the system.
Americans Continue To Eat Out Despite Recession
US Economy Poll (1/1) - "Synopsis 60% of Americans say they ate dinner out at a restaurant at least once during the prior week, similar to the 64% recorded in December 2005 and down only slightly from 66% in December 2003" Does this give the reader an idea that the quality of restaurant has also gone down. The gourmet restaurants now have fewer lines and reservations while fast food enjoys plenty of business. They are all restaurants but, is the picture the same if one looks at the numbers rather than comparing those to quality of restaurants patronized?
Thursday, January 1, 2009
2008: IN MEMORIAM
Each year the old year dies and a new one is born with all the hope that is attached to all births; hope,ideas, projects, promises, leaders, new bosses, new jobs, new schools and the list could go on. However, even hope can die. It is up to us to keep nourishing hope in this country, support as many as we can to survive the tragic lives into which so many have been thrown, and rebuild America. As none of us can do it alone, note that even those in charge cannot do it alone, either. Obama is a man, not a God, and as such cannot perform miracles.
We will look back to the losses of people we did not know other than their public personas. We will mourn our lost loved ones and friends as we will mourn the many changes we are forced to accept and adjust to work for us. We will accept that we will spend more time trying to reach anyone in business, having to wade through a telephone maze as difficult as walking through the maze at Henry the VIII's garden, Hampton Court in Surrey.
We will continue to have to get computer program updates and spend so much of our lives reading manuals and relearning software that we have little time for things we want or need to do. We will replace our dead appliances with new ones, adding the instructions to the pile waiting for us to tackle the added learning curve. We will try to pay our bills on time to avoid the astronomical fees attached if our payment gets there 2 seconds beyond their random deadline, so that the creditors can continue to make obscene profits from the little people.
We will make New Year's Resolutions to diet, quit bad habits, be better people, save money, quit impulse buying, cook in rather than eating out so much, and all sorts of things, with good intent, and promptly start rationalizing the reasons we didn't follow through.
Some of us will rely on our Faith in God and some of us will claim full responsibility for all our own actions and chances. Some of us will pretend we still live in a democracy and speak out with our complaints about what has happened to our educational system, medical system, and all other areas in which the USA used to be a leader and accept that we no longer offer the best of much of anything for which we can be proud. We've outsourced our collective soul and it is unclear whether we will ever be able to reclaim it.
With sad hearts, struggling to maintain that hope the campaign and election fed us, we drink champagne at midnight and wait to see what 2009 brings.
We will look back to the losses of people we did not know other than their public personas. We will mourn our lost loved ones and friends as we will mourn the many changes we are forced to accept and adjust to work for us. We will accept that we will spend more time trying to reach anyone in business, having to wade through a telephone maze as difficult as walking through the maze at Henry the VIII's garden, Hampton Court in Surrey.
We will continue to have to get computer program updates and spend so much of our lives reading manuals and relearning software that we have little time for things we want or need to do. We will replace our dead appliances with new ones, adding the instructions to the pile waiting for us to tackle the added learning curve. We will try to pay our bills on time to avoid the astronomical fees attached if our payment gets there 2 seconds beyond their random deadline, so that the creditors can continue to make obscene profits from the little people.
We will make New Year's Resolutions to diet, quit bad habits, be better people, save money, quit impulse buying, cook in rather than eating out so much, and all sorts of things, with good intent, and promptly start rationalizing the reasons we didn't follow through.
Some of us will rely on our Faith in God and some of us will claim full responsibility for all our own actions and chances. Some of us will pretend we still live in a democracy and speak out with our complaints about what has happened to our educational system, medical system, and all other areas in which the USA used to be a leader and accept that we no longer offer the best of much of anything for which we can be proud. We've outsourced our collective soul and it is unclear whether we will ever be able to reclaim it.
With sad hearts, struggling to maintain that hope the campaign and election fed us, we drink champagne at midnight and wait to see what 2009 brings.
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