LUCK IS WHERE OPPORTUNITY AND PREPARATION MEET

As I sat thinking about what I needed to do in anticipation of Hurricane Irene I was reminded of Tom Lehrer and the song:  "Be Prepared".  What came to mind was the irony of preparedness minimizing disasters, sometimes resulting in people wondering why they spent so much time preparing when nothing untoward had happened.  Naturally, many never realized that the safety they experienced was not luck but in their  preparedness.

Just as a depressed person has so often taken medicine, felt better, and then assumed the medication was unnecessary because they felt good, whereupon the cessation of the meds plunged them back into depression.

Consequences seem to be no longer in the 'what-might-have-been-if-I-hadn't realm'  but are now lost in the 'what-a-waste-of-time-all-that-work-was' when nothing terrible happened.  We must keep in mind, "Luck is where opportunity and preparation meet."  For centuries we heard about the Three Little Pigs and how the smart, industrious and responsible one built his house of brick.  We also learned that the lazy ones who had played while he was working benefited by moving into his house when theirs failed to keep them safe.

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THE MAJOR PREACHER OF DIVISIVENESS IN OUR COUNTRY!

Dick Cheney

It is tragic that many of the candidates for public office are too young to remember what it felt like to be united against a common enemy in time of war and be proud of our own country.  We lost that during the Viet Nam War and never regained it, only to lose it more acutely under the Bush-Cheney administration.  Apparently the man who as Vice-President, Cheney, has written a book, claiming that heads will explode in Washington when it is read.  Truth does not usually explode people's heads so I wonder just what he has written.  His narcissism seems present when he says his book makes no apologies for any of the illegal positions he took during his tenure in office.


He writes: In My Time: A Personal and Political Memoir  Next to it on the Amazon page is:  Cheney: The Untold Story of America's Most Powerful and Controversial Vice President by Stephen F. Hayes.

John Nichols wrote: Dick: The Man Who is President (Dick Cheney.  There were many books about the controversial man acting as President though not elected to that office, simply because the elected President was too weak to stop him.  That inability to stop Cheney will forever be borne as a negative to the GW Bush presidential history.

In a recent NY Times article by Charlie Savage, he writes that Cheney had urged Bush to bomb Syria in 2007  Click here to read the article.  The article quotes: 

“I again made the case for U.S. military action against the reactor,” Mr. Cheney wrote about a meeting on the issue. “But I was a lone voice. After I finished, the president asked, ‘Does anyone here agree with the vice president?’ Not a single hand went up around the room.”

For one, I will not bother to read his book as it would be against my integrity to give the man money for the terrible things he did to this country.  I know that the media, both TV and print, will review it more than sufficiently for me to know and confirm my opinion that he should be prosecuted for what he did to damage the image of our country.  However, since he can't travel to Europe for fear of prosecution for his war crimes, I clearly do not stand alone in this opinion. 

IT'S EASIER TO TELL THE TRUTH THAN TO LIE, EXCEPT IN POLITICS

There must have been a time when politicians, like snake oil salesmen, could lie and there would be no real trace of it when they told another brand, new whopper.  That is just not possible in today's world.  The problem today is that there are so many changes in what people are saying during campaigns that people can't keep track of the lies unless they watch Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. 

Our new G W Bush?

Perry on the Stimulus. which Texas used billions of and still cut out hundreds of teaching jobs.  Can there really be enough people to elect a man as their President who does not believe that evolution is a scientific FACT, not a theory?


Jason Cherkis, Huffington Post, August 3, 2011, writes:  "Of all the jobs created last year, 37 percent paid at or below minimum wage. Texas leads the nation in total minimum wage workers."  To read more of the truth by Perry;s claims as noted by Cherkis, click here.

LIFE MILESTONES SHOULD BE NEED, NOT AGE

We always seem to get back to people trying to make things simple.  It is back to the 'one-size-fits-all' attitude.  Of course politicians would find it easier if all people were ready to retire at 67 or 68 rather than 62 or 65.  However, genetics don't flow that evenly from person to person.  Each of us develops differently with many variables determining what we will be like at any given age.

One variable is genetics, another is life style.  There are others such as ones own chemistry, the degree of stress endured through life and how good coping skills have been to keep the cortisol level low.

Mental health and the amount of medication a patient has had prescribed is another determinant.  Side effects over the years can do a number on a person's body and it is not a positive effect.

Whoever called following retirement as the Golden years is certainly not looking at life today.  The only connection to gold and age today is the inflated price of gold and the limited amount of money so many have to survive on as fixed income which is never fixed but keeps changing...usually diminishing.

Physical health at any given decade decides so much about quality of life, mobility, ability to keep hobbies or profession, and finances determine life style as another element.

Without a doubt, it is ideal tin one can keep hitting those decade markers with good health, senses intact,  brain working like an older CPU with storage of data and drives intact as well. Having finances sufficient to maintain a comfortable roof over your head, eat adequately, and be able to get adequate medical care when needed is about all one can ask as ideal.

It would be interesting to get a statistic on just how many seniors in the USA today can claim their lives contain all the criteria in that last paragraph.

LET YOUR EYES DO THE WALKING, NOT YOUR FINGERSr OR FEET

The newest way to see the world is via Google's 'Street View.'  We will soon be able to even travel the Amazon without a single bug bite.

While so many people continue to hang onto their way of doing things, refusing to buy new products because they don't like the learning curve involved, others are adjusting to a totally different way of doing things.

There will always be resistance to change by whichever generation is asked to make it.  To the generation born into the era where current actions and products are all they have known, there is no change to resist.  Some of us who span more than a couple of generations vacillate about accepting some changes because 'need', the greatest motivator of all, does not dictate acceptance. Our lives are not spent, for the most part, out of our homes so we do not covet all the wireless, mobile, satellite, cell, hand-held and 'whatever technology' is provided for those who do.  Lacking the physical energy, patience, and finances to travel the world in the real world, there is little unavailable to us on our computers.  We can visit museums, view Masterpieces, enjoy the beauties of Nature throughout the entire world, view the scenery from the top of Mount Everest, study other peoples' ways, or fulfill almost any fantasy one might have....and it is only getting better.

BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR, OR WORSE, CREATE

Karl Rove created Rick Perry, the politician who has moved forward from his creator and like so many, think his ideas are as good as the master.  Perry has strange and controversial opinions on almost everything.  He does not believe in evolution and still clings to the outdated definition that it is still a theory and thus not worth believing.  Last year he was talking reason when he was calling for Texans to consider seceding from the United States.  There is an article in the Washington Post about whether Perry will have a Karl Rove problem.  One might ask whether Perry might also have a Rove problem.

Michele Bachmann believes herself to be in the religious womb and thus that God is backing her.  There are jokes about the subtle ways God goes about helping people...mainly that he might put opportunity in their path but that they must help themselves.  One wonders about some of her vitriolic opinions and biases and just how Christian they really are.

There are other candidates like the governor of Ohio and Indiana who laid some pretty drastic laws and actions down over which they are having second thoughts as people are drowning them with petition signatures  And, As the World Turns, life in America has become an every day soap opera.

OUR COMLICATED ENGLISH LANGUAGE

Somewhere in my long term memory, I stored the trivia that Eskimos have over 25 words for snow.  English is certainly not at all better, really.  If something can be said simply, it is but chance.  Take, for example, the word billet.


billet   PRONUNCIATION:(BIL-it)  verb tr., intr.:MEANING:
1. To lodge or to be quartered.
noun:
2. A civilian place (as a private home) where soldiers are lodged temporarily.
3. An official order directing someone to provide lodging for soldiers.
4. A short letter or a note.
5. A job appointment.
6. A chunk of wood, suitable for fuel.
7. A metal bar or ingot.

Truly, in my ignorance, I fail to see a connection between a job appointment and as chunk of wood suitable for fuel   Perhaps it comes from the prospective employer receiving so many applications, he compresses them all into a block to be burned up!  Well, it makes as much sense as any other!

constitution, yet another word with many meanings and one meaning which seems to have different meanings to different people today, as in The Constitution of the United States. Whatever happened to Justice Scalia's teaching the Constitution to Bachmann and friends?. If he is through with that, maybe he can teach her American History to date.

constitution [ˌkɒnstɪˈtjuːʃən]  n

1. the act of constituting or state of being constituted

2. the way in which a thing is composed; physical make-up; structure

3. (Government, Politics & Diplomacy) the fundamental political principles on which a state is governed, esp when considered as embodying the rights of the subjects of that state

4. (Government, Politics & Diplomacy) (often capital) (in certain countries, esp Australia and the US) a statute embodying such principles

5. a person's state of health

6. a person's disposition of mind; temperament

(definition from the Collins English Dictionary)