Saturday, November 21, 2015
Monday, November 2, 2015
Thank You Kansas City Royals
Be happy for me Met's fans. Much as you wanted this win, you cannot possibly have needed it worse than I. I've never been able to afford tickets to sports events, though I've gotten to watch a handful of Royals or Chiefs games courtesy of an employer. Any more, I can't watch the games because I get so tense. I even complain sometimes when my favorite shows are preempted by such an event. I've been heard to complain that the Kansas City fan base is a little "nutso". But I never cease to hope that "my" teams will win.
Sunday night when I went upstairs to bed, the final game of the World Series was tied. Suddenly, just as I was slipping off to sleep, my entire neighborhood went crazy. Fireworks and gunshots, shouts and celebrating let me know the Royals had won. Quiet tears of joy were "leaking" from my eyes. Embarrassing!
Oh, c'mon it can't be that important you say! Well, if you'd had my weekend, you would understand. A long-term goal of mine had fallen through on Saturday. It was almost a faith shaking disappointment. I'd spent all day Sunday overcoming an event-caused depression.
This wasn't the first time the Kansas City Royals had saved the day for me. In July, 1985, I sold my house and moved my two sons and myself to the Tampa, FL, area. During my nine-month stay there, I never found full-time work. I found temp jobs for forty hours a week and part-time permanent jobs. The salaries were so low that working sixty hours a week I was having a rough time making the rent.
Then, in the fall when I was in despair, the St. Louis Cardinals and the Kansas City Royals faced off for the World Series. Having grown up in Southern Illinois, the St. Louis Cardinals had always been my team until the Royals came to Kansas City, my new home town. I was unreasonably happy that my two favorite teams were playing each other. I hadn't planned on choosing a favorite until Jimmy the Greek said the Royals didn't stand a chance against the Cards. As everybody knows, the Royals didn't let me down.
A long-term temp job ended and I was back to hit and miss assignments. There had been no real fall. Christmas Eve had been 85 degrees. If a relative hadn't sent a monetary gift, there wouldn't have been gifts for my boys. When I'd been there almost nine months, the only time I'd seen the Gulf was crossing to St. Petersburg for the funeral of a supervisor's husband. Hurricane Elena had sat off the coast for 24 hours slamming tornadoes at us. While I was always working, my boys were at home racking up $100 a month phone bills no matter what I said. They were lonely.
The final straw was when a teacher at my night job told me the administration was going to have me teach a Saturday class. When would I clean, cook, buy groceries? I rented an eighteen foot Ryder. Because I had two passengers, I couldn't rent an automatic transmission. I had to shift my way through mountains and everything, pulling my car behind. I found temporary work immediately and in a little over a month had a full time job.
All these memories have been pouring in during this World Series. I know I made the right decision about the move and about the Royals. They saved my spirits again last night.
Take heart Met's fans. Your team will win again some day -- maybe just when you need it.
Sunday night when I went upstairs to bed, the final game of the World Series was tied. Suddenly, just as I was slipping off to sleep, my entire neighborhood went crazy. Fireworks and gunshots, shouts and celebrating let me know the Royals had won. Quiet tears of joy were "leaking" from my eyes. Embarrassing!
Oh, c'mon it can't be that important you say! Well, if you'd had my weekend, you would understand. A long-term goal of mine had fallen through on Saturday. It was almost a faith shaking disappointment. I'd spent all day Sunday overcoming an event-caused depression.
This wasn't the first time the Kansas City Royals had saved the day for me. In July, 1985, I sold my house and moved my two sons and myself to the Tampa, FL, area. During my nine-month stay there, I never found full-time work. I found temp jobs for forty hours a week and part-time permanent jobs. The salaries were so low that working sixty hours a week I was having a rough time making the rent.
Then, in the fall when I was in despair, the St. Louis Cardinals and the Kansas City Royals faced off for the World Series. Having grown up in Southern Illinois, the St. Louis Cardinals had always been my team until the Royals came to Kansas City, my new home town. I was unreasonably happy that my two favorite teams were playing each other. I hadn't planned on choosing a favorite until Jimmy the Greek said the Royals didn't stand a chance against the Cards. As everybody knows, the Royals didn't let me down.
A long-term temp job ended and I was back to hit and miss assignments. There had been no real fall. Christmas Eve had been 85 degrees. If a relative hadn't sent a monetary gift, there wouldn't have been gifts for my boys. When I'd been there almost nine months, the only time I'd seen the Gulf was crossing to St. Petersburg for the funeral of a supervisor's husband. Hurricane Elena had sat off the coast for 24 hours slamming tornadoes at us. While I was always working, my boys were at home racking up $100 a month phone bills no matter what I said. They were lonely.
The final straw was when a teacher at my night job told me the administration was going to have me teach a Saturday class. When would I clean, cook, buy groceries? I rented an eighteen foot Ryder. Because I had two passengers, I couldn't rent an automatic transmission. I had to shift my way through mountains and everything, pulling my car behind. I found temporary work immediately and in a little over a month had a full time job.
All these memories have been pouring in during this World Series. I know I made the right decision about the move and about the Royals. They saved my spirits again last night.
Take heart Met's fans. Your team will win again some day -- maybe just when you need it.
Thursday, October 29, 2015
Are We From The Same Planet?
There is a piece in the November 2, 2015, Time about advice on the internet. It references advice columns dating from the 1690's up to and including Dear Abby and Miss Manners. A typical question to Dear Abby was, "how is a guy supposed to know if a girl is cold, playing hard-to-get or just nice?" Permit me to try to answer. Well, cold is not nice and neither is game playing, so how did that word get in the same sentence with the others? Did he possibly mean to ask if the girl was a good girl? And was he equating being a good girl to being cold?
I'd like to say, well, duh, if she doesn't respond to you at all, she probably isn't into you at all, but that seems a little harsh. There is that off-chance that she really is playing a game. Even if the latter is the case, it would be healthier to run off in any direction. If she entraps you by game playing, you will be forever locked into games which always end with bad feelings for all.
Many books have been written to help others find a mate. In fact, research projects have been conducted about people's sexual needs, prowess and fantasies. Young people today don't have the advantages of knowing what the Kinsey research found out, like men think about sex every few seconds, but women have other things on their minds.
Men, per the Kinsey report, think about having sex with people in their everyday lives. Women prefer to dream about an unknown male we would probably refer to as a knight in shining armor, or else some celebrity. In other words, men and women are usually not even on the same page.
Then there was the age of body language and it's interpretation. There were experts that said if a woman crossed her arms over her chest and crossed one leg over the other, she was signaling she was not available to you. Other experts said, no, that meant they wanted you, but were just in denial. And the experts in body language in business settings said it was that people were not liking what you were saying and were shutting you out. Shutting out or not, it brought new fads. There was a long period of time when moronic men, entering a room where there was a single female or a really hot married one, would slap his arms across his chest and his leg over the other emphatically denying his availability. I guess if a woman was interested, it might have hurt. But the general response was genuine anger that he thought he was such a hot commodity that anyone had noticed him before the gesture. It also told the women he was projecting his own feelings toward them.
Following in jig time were cautions that body language in one part of the country was not the same as that in another. Having lived in five states, I can say that this is true. In two of them, I've been exposed to a movement I don't understand. The man leans forward from the waist up and in a large sweeping motion, waves his chest in front of the woman's. The first time it happened to me, my entire body startled. I was at his door asking if my missing young son were there with his son. I still don't know what it means, but he and I were definitely not on the same page and my body told him so. By the second or third time from other men, I wasn't surprised, but just ignored it.
There is another unreadable signal that's happened only in my current city and I have not a clue what it means either. The man faces the woman and places his hands palm inward and touching his hips, with his fingers pointing at the woman -- the hands are resting parallel to his genitals. Now, I could say that sexual as this seems he may be inviting the chick to bed. But on the other hand, it's possible it's a new form of flashing the middle finger to tell her to go to hell.
Whatever, it's all too primal for my tastes! Men back in my day would walk up and ask us to go out for coffee or a movie. The shy ones sent a mutual friend to find out if we were interested. Of course, when I think of the cost of Starbucks or a theater ticket, I almost don't blame the guy for trying to get by on charm. But if all he is looking for is getting laid on the cheap, let me suggest he find someone on the corner a couple or three blocks from my house.
Which brings us to goals. What is it you are really looking for when you approach a woman? Just sex? Your goal should dictate whom you approach and how. Are you looking for a relationship? Then, it is probably important to take age into account. An eighteen year old male and a fifty year old woman probably have nothing in common. Yet, time after time, I've witnessed a younger male move in on a woman that much older than he. Same can be said for thirty to seventy or forty to seventy-five. What is the motivation for such a move? Sex? Wouldn't sex with someone young and pretty be a more sane move? Or are you just thinking someone that much older would be more vulnerable? If that's the reason, you are disrespecting yourself as well as the woman. You feel so badly about yourself that you think you can't get someone your own age? Are you looking for a mother? Do you think they have more money than someone your age? On Social Security (LOL)? What are you hoping?
Are you wanting to start a family? Is that your goal? Well, certainly you need someone at least under forty. A lot of women go through the change in their fifties. A woman I once worked with remarried her ex. They were in agreement before the marriage that there would be no more children. After the fact, he decided he did want more and nagged her to use artificial insemination. Pregnancy, guys is hard on a young woman, much less on someone who has passed her fertile years. What was he thinking?
There are also cultural differences. One mentioned in body language books was about young women from families that used chaperons to go on dates with the young. These girls could afford to be more relaxed with their movements because the chaperon was there to protect them.
One male, who was Asian, had a habit of expressing his availability by bending his knee and raising it, then turning it to the side, exposing and thrusting his clothed genital area. I don't think anybody would misinterpret that intent, but get real guy! Women aren't animals out on the street running with a pack of mongrels. That's way, way, way too primal for most of us.
So, in summation, know your own goals. Are you looking for just sex, unmarried relationships, marriage and parenthood or mere affirmation of your sexual self? Pick your target population with that in mind. People your age are more likely to have your same desires and goals. They probably like the same kind of music and movies. Know your gender. Women, if they are looking, are more likely to be looking for a relationship and men for sex. Women who are looking to start families want solid citizens with jobs and stability. Women who have reared one family are not usually looking for number two. This includes new infants or infantile mates. A school teacher, lawyer or doctor is not inclined to want to be with a wanabe mechanic who is going to spend all his evening with his head under the hood of a car. A real mechanic doesn't want to come home to work on her garage full of used cars.
Women like Ava Gardner, Elizabeth Taylor, Marilyn Monroe or Kim Kardashian are the kind that multitudes of men would like to ensnare. But, unless you are Paul Newman, Robert Redford, Brad Pitt or Dwayne "the Rock" Johnson, you are unlikely to get to first base. We all have to face reality and set our goals accordingly unless we love putting ourselves in the path of pain.
And remember, just because Kim Kardashian is the stuff of your fantasies doesn't mean you are the stuff of hers. So, be careful not to project your own needs and feelings onto them. They probably didn't get the same memo you did. Like the book title says, women are from Venus and men from Mars. Or is that the other way around? When it comes to mating, we definitely are not from the same planet.
I'd like to say, well, duh, if she doesn't respond to you at all, she probably isn't into you at all, but that seems a little harsh. There is that off-chance that she really is playing a game. Even if the latter is the case, it would be healthier to run off in any direction. If she entraps you by game playing, you will be forever locked into games which always end with bad feelings for all.
Many books have been written to help others find a mate. In fact, research projects have been conducted about people's sexual needs, prowess and fantasies. Young people today don't have the advantages of knowing what the Kinsey research found out, like men think about sex every few seconds, but women have other things on their minds.
Men, per the Kinsey report, think about having sex with people in their everyday lives. Women prefer to dream about an unknown male we would probably refer to as a knight in shining armor, or else some celebrity. In other words, men and women are usually not even on the same page.
Then there was the age of body language and it's interpretation. There were experts that said if a woman crossed her arms over her chest and crossed one leg over the other, she was signaling she was not available to you. Other experts said, no, that meant they wanted you, but were just in denial. And the experts in body language in business settings said it was that people were not liking what you were saying and were shutting you out. Shutting out or not, it brought new fads. There was a long period of time when moronic men, entering a room where there was a single female or a really hot married one, would slap his arms across his chest and his leg over the other emphatically denying his availability. I guess if a woman was interested, it might have hurt. But the general response was genuine anger that he thought he was such a hot commodity that anyone had noticed him before the gesture. It also told the women he was projecting his own feelings toward them.
Following in jig time were cautions that body language in one part of the country was not the same as that in another. Having lived in five states, I can say that this is true. In two of them, I've been exposed to a movement I don't understand. The man leans forward from the waist up and in a large sweeping motion, waves his chest in front of the woman's. The first time it happened to me, my entire body startled. I was at his door asking if my missing young son were there with his son. I still don't know what it means, but he and I were definitely not on the same page and my body told him so. By the second or third time from other men, I wasn't surprised, but just ignored it.
There is another unreadable signal that's happened only in my current city and I have not a clue what it means either. The man faces the woman and places his hands palm inward and touching his hips, with his fingers pointing at the woman -- the hands are resting parallel to his genitals. Now, I could say that sexual as this seems he may be inviting the chick to bed. But on the other hand, it's possible it's a new form of flashing the middle finger to tell her to go to hell.
Whatever, it's all too primal for my tastes! Men back in my day would walk up and ask us to go out for coffee or a movie. The shy ones sent a mutual friend to find out if we were interested. Of course, when I think of the cost of Starbucks or a theater ticket, I almost don't blame the guy for trying to get by on charm. But if all he is looking for is getting laid on the cheap, let me suggest he find someone on the corner a couple or three blocks from my house.
Which brings us to goals. What is it you are really looking for when you approach a woman? Just sex? Your goal should dictate whom you approach and how. Are you looking for a relationship? Then, it is probably important to take age into account. An eighteen year old male and a fifty year old woman probably have nothing in common. Yet, time after time, I've witnessed a younger male move in on a woman that much older than he. Same can be said for thirty to seventy or forty to seventy-five. What is the motivation for such a move? Sex? Wouldn't sex with someone young and pretty be a more sane move? Or are you just thinking someone that much older would be more vulnerable? If that's the reason, you are disrespecting yourself as well as the woman. You feel so badly about yourself that you think you can't get someone your own age? Are you looking for a mother? Do you think they have more money than someone your age? On Social Security (LOL)? What are you hoping?
Are you wanting to start a family? Is that your goal? Well, certainly you need someone at least under forty. A lot of women go through the change in their fifties. A woman I once worked with remarried her ex. They were in agreement before the marriage that there would be no more children. After the fact, he decided he did want more and nagged her to use artificial insemination. Pregnancy, guys is hard on a young woman, much less on someone who has passed her fertile years. What was he thinking?
There are also cultural differences. One mentioned in body language books was about young women from families that used chaperons to go on dates with the young. These girls could afford to be more relaxed with their movements because the chaperon was there to protect them.
One male, who was Asian, had a habit of expressing his availability by bending his knee and raising it, then turning it to the side, exposing and thrusting his clothed genital area. I don't think anybody would misinterpret that intent, but get real guy! Women aren't animals out on the street running with a pack of mongrels. That's way, way, way too primal for most of us.
So, in summation, know your own goals. Are you looking for just sex, unmarried relationships, marriage and parenthood or mere affirmation of your sexual self? Pick your target population with that in mind. People your age are more likely to have your same desires and goals. They probably like the same kind of music and movies. Know your gender. Women, if they are looking, are more likely to be looking for a relationship and men for sex. Women who are looking to start families want solid citizens with jobs and stability. Women who have reared one family are not usually looking for number two. This includes new infants or infantile mates. A school teacher, lawyer or doctor is not inclined to want to be with a wanabe mechanic who is going to spend all his evening with his head under the hood of a car. A real mechanic doesn't want to come home to work on her garage full of used cars.
Women like Ava Gardner, Elizabeth Taylor, Marilyn Monroe or Kim Kardashian are the kind that multitudes of men would like to ensnare. But, unless you are Paul Newman, Robert Redford, Brad Pitt or Dwayne "the Rock" Johnson, you are unlikely to get to first base. We all have to face reality and set our goals accordingly unless we love putting ourselves in the path of pain.
And remember, just because Kim Kardashian is the stuff of your fantasies doesn't mean you are the stuff of hers. So, be careful not to project your own needs and feelings onto them. They probably didn't get the same memo you did. Like the book title says, women are from Venus and men from Mars. Or is that the other way around? When it comes to mating, we definitely are not from the same planet.
Saturday, October 24, 2015
Not Nice, Just Likable
There was a person in my world for some time who thought nothing of telling falsehoods. Said person was extremely good at it, so good that someone could be telling the truth beside the person and he/she telling a bald-faced lie, and people would believe the liar.
The other day, I was listening to someone describing an individual I did not know. A long list of stories was being told which included a couple of low-level crimes. Then the narrator said the individual was a "nice person". When faced with skepticism from a listener, the story teller said, "No, really, this is a really nice individual".
I don't think so. I think he/she is a really likable, though not nice, person. Do you understand the difference between likable and nice?
A nice person is always polite and thinks of others. He avoids breaking laws. She places other's needs before her own, sometimes to her own detriment. A nice person would never knowingly create problems and then not try to help resolve them. They are not perfect, but they do their best to do the right thing when needed.
Not all good or nice people are likable. Not all likable people are good or nice.
Take the con artist. Nobody would ever be able to pull a con on someone unless they had a likable personality. They can pull off a sting with ease because others want to please them. Others want them to be as good inside as they appear on the surface -- the facade.
A bully, for instance, makes people do his/her bidding by exercising brute force. Who likes a bully? But, if a bully learns to finesse and manipulate, to be persuasive and likable, he can be seen to be nice. The facade is deceiving. The core is still bully.
There are a lot of levels of nice/not nice in the spectrum of humans. Figuring out the difference is necessary for us to survive, at least emotionally. Unfortunately, we live in a world where not everybody is trustworthy. Knowing the difference between nice and likable could come in very handy.
The other day, I was listening to someone describing an individual I did not know. A long list of stories was being told which included a couple of low-level crimes. Then the narrator said the individual was a "nice person". When faced with skepticism from a listener, the story teller said, "No, really, this is a really nice individual".
I don't think so. I think he/she is a really likable, though not nice, person. Do you understand the difference between likable and nice?
A nice person is always polite and thinks of others. He avoids breaking laws. She places other's needs before her own, sometimes to her own detriment. A nice person would never knowingly create problems and then not try to help resolve them. They are not perfect, but they do their best to do the right thing when needed.
Not all good or nice people are likable. Not all likable people are good or nice.
Take the con artist. Nobody would ever be able to pull a con on someone unless they had a likable personality. They can pull off a sting with ease because others want to please them. Others want them to be as good inside as they appear on the surface -- the facade.
A bully, for instance, makes people do his/her bidding by exercising brute force. Who likes a bully? But, if a bully learns to finesse and manipulate, to be persuasive and likable, he can be seen to be nice. The facade is deceiving. The core is still bully.
There are a lot of levels of nice/not nice in the spectrum of humans. Figuring out the difference is necessary for us to survive, at least emotionally. Unfortunately, we live in a world where not everybody is trustworthy. Knowing the difference between nice and likable could come in very handy.
Wednesday, September 30, 2015
An Open Letter About Windows 10 *
Thank you for the free download of Windows 10. I'm learning a lot as I transition from my Windows 7 program.
Regrettably, I am experiencing some adjustment problems and need to ask for help -- more than can be easily accessed on the internet.
I'm not asking for a long, involved explanation. I just need an adjustment to the software when you can do it.
1. This problem began with Windows 7. If you are reading this, you are aware I am a blogger. I type (key) fairly fast and while I am zipping through my manuscript, the type will change size. Sometimes this happens several times in one article. In addition, the bar across the top that says
File Edit View Favorites Tools Help
disappeared from view. While I still had Version 7, I could hit the alt key and the bar would return long enough for one action. (I had to hit it three times to copy, cut and paste, etc.) Now the text has become almost excruciatingly small and the alt key does not produce the bar. I've tried using the magnifier but 100% is where it is now and 200%, the next option, puts most of the article off the page. I cannot see what else to do, and lack the correct terminology to ask the computer for help.
At first I though it was a blogger problem, but it happened in Facebook the other night, too. This time, nothing seems to increase the size except the magnifier and I've already described the frustration with it.
2. My second problem is related to accessing my two Hotmail and two Facebook accounts. Older versions permitted us to tell the machine both the account name and the password and we could switch from account to account. Now, whatever we accessed last just pops up automatically.
3. The third problem is that I cannot always close just one window at a time like I could in earlier versions. For instance, I'm in Hotmail reading an answer to a post I made on Facebook, but I don't remember what I said. I click on the icon to view my words. Then when I click the X to close the window, I frequently get the offer to close all or the offer to cancel. I need one for closing just that window.
I know this is a strange way of asking for help, but if I am having these problems, perhaps others are, too. I'm by no means a computer expert, but I'm not a complete novice either. Help please!
*Thanks to those who have helped me to resolve most of my problems. I am grateful!!
Regrettably, I am experiencing some adjustment problems and need to ask for help -- more than can be easily accessed on the internet.
I'm not asking for a long, involved explanation. I just need an adjustment to the software when you can do it.
1. This problem began with Windows 7. If you are reading this, you are aware I am a blogger. I type (key) fairly fast and while I am zipping through my manuscript, the type will change size. Sometimes this happens several times in one article. In addition, the bar across the top that says
File Edit View Favorites Tools Help
disappeared from view. While I still had Version 7, I could hit the alt key and the bar would return long enough for one action. (I had to hit it three times to copy, cut and paste, etc.) Now the text has become almost excruciatingly small and the alt key does not produce the bar. I've tried using the magnifier but 100% is where it is now and 200%, the next option, puts most of the article off the page. I cannot see what else to do, and lack the correct terminology to ask the computer for help.
At first I though it was a blogger problem, but it happened in Facebook the other night, too. This time, nothing seems to increase the size except the magnifier and I've already described the frustration with it.
2. My second problem is related to accessing my two Hotmail and two Facebook accounts. Older versions permitted us to tell the machine both the account name and the password and we could switch from account to account. Now, whatever we accessed last just pops up automatically.
3. The third problem is that I cannot always close just one window at a time like I could in earlier versions. For instance, I'm in Hotmail reading an answer to a post I made on Facebook, but I don't remember what I said. I click on the icon to view my words. Then when I click the X to close the window, I frequently get the offer to close all or the offer to cancel. I need one for closing just that window.
I know this is a strange way of asking for help, but if I am having these problems, perhaps others are, too. I'm by no means a computer expert, but I'm not a complete novice either. Help please!
*Thanks to those who have helped me to resolve most of my problems. I am grateful!!
Wednesday, September 16, 2015
Walking On Eggshells
I heard a well-known family therapist speak one time about communication within the family. He used his own mother as an example of someone the family was always "walking on eggshells with"; someone one could not engage in communication with about her participation in family problems. If anybody suggested to her, however mildly, that she might make some changes so family interactions could go better, she would take offense. How dare anyone "criticize" her? Thus communications and interactions in the family could never completely improve.
Communications experts teach us now that rather than telling someone that their behaviors are causing a problem, we tell them how their behaviors make us feel -- unloved, angry, left out, frustrated, whatever.
I don't believe it is too far fetched to say that good communication is the basis of good relationships. Without it, there is no relationship. People have to be able to address any and all issues honestly and completely. And the experts are correct -- it is better to present how you feel than it is to accuse the other person of wrongdoing. And oh, how hard that is! I could use lessons in this.
It might be considered that the person who cannot accept and admit to their own errors in interactions has a poor self concept. A more self assured person would take a more assertive stance and ask for more information and determine if the other individual has a genuine "case", so to speak. If they have, you might want to adjust your own behaviors to ease the stress in the relationship.
I once heard (through the paper thin walls of an apartment house), a man tell a woman, "I am not the one being unreasonable about this. You are." It was no surprise when he moved out before the week was up. Apparently nobody was accepting responsibility for the rift. Nobody was guilty. Nobody was saying, "There may not be anything wrong or unreasonable about the way you are acting, but here is how it make me feel."
It boils down to everyone accepting responsibility for the rifts. It is crucial to the healing process.
All problem interactions are power struggles of one kind or another. There are no winners of power struggles unless all parties accept responsibility and hold themselves accountable. This is true in the home, workplace, and the community at large. Good communication is a recognition of everyone's needs and then negotiation to compromise.
Communications experts teach us now that rather than telling someone that their behaviors are causing a problem, we tell them how their behaviors make us feel -- unloved, angry, left out, frustrated, whatever.
I don't believe it is too far fetched to say that good communication is the basis of good relationships. Without it, there is no relationship. People have to be able to address any and all issues honestly and completely. And the experts are correct -- it is better to present how you feel than it is to accuse the other person of wrongdoing. And oh, how hard that is! I could use lessons in this.
It might be considered that the person who cannot accept and admit to their own errors in interactions has a poor self concept. A more self assured person would take a more assertive stance and ask for more information and determine if the other individual has a genuine "case", so to speak. If they have, you might want to adjust your own behaviors to ease the stress in the relationship.
I once heard (through the paper thin walls of an apartment house), a man tell a woman, "I am not the one being unreasonable about this. You are." It was no surprise when he moved out before the week was up. Apparently nobody was accepting responsibility for the rift. Nobody was guilty. Nobody was saying, "There may not be anything wrong or unreasonable about the way you are acting, but here is how it make me feel."
It boils down to everyone accepting responsibility for the rifts. It is crucial to the healing process.
All problem interactions are power struggles of one kind or another. There are no winners of power struggles unless all parties accept responsibility and hold themselves accountable. This is true in the home, workplace, and the community at large. Good communication is a recognition of everyone's needs and then negotiation to compromise.
Saturday, September 12, 2015
Have You Ever Seen A Ghost?
Time Magazine's September 21, 2015 issue features questions with celebrity answers. Some of the responders are really famous like George Takai. Others are scientists who want infallible proof for things. I scanned through part of this section and zeroed in on the question about ghosts. Mr. Takai was quite certain there are. He said he sees them everywhere when he goes back to someplace he has been in the past. His description is of memories rather than ghosts -- ghost memories, perhaps?
The scientific dude says ghosts have never been scientifically proven, ergo they do not exist. I don't blame him for being a disbeliever. I was, too, for most of my life. There is nothing like seeing your first ghost to know that they are very, very real. It's most amusing when others you have known to be disbelievers see ghosts, also.
For instance, some friends of mine were moving into a new home. They were almost at the point of rage that anyone could believe there was such a thing. By the time they had spent twenty years there, they were singing a different tune. The previous homeowners had been dancers. My friends had looked up to see a man dressed in a Spanish dancer's costume checking out his outfit in a mirror. They said they sometimes heard people in the home talking. They couldn't hear and understand the words, just hear the voices.
I had seen my first ghost once before, but I didn't realize he was a ghost. I did wonder why the neighbor's who were doing their lawn work didn't acknowledge him when he was running around in glee and approaching them over and over. I shrugged and thought well, whatever.
Then one night I was home alone and came streaking out of a steamy bathroom. There he stood again, all smiley and friendly. I rushed into my bedroom and closed the door. Once I was dressed, I searched the apartment. All the locks and chains were in place. I was so sure there was no such thing as ghosts that I searched for days for some kind of secret entrance. I never found one.
I will have to say that he looked like a full color hologram that night, thus reinforcing the scary suspicion that I was seeing a spirit and not a live person.
Fifteen or more years later and in another apartment complex, I had another shock. There was a man I had seen visiting a neighbor on several occasions. That same man walked right through my upstairs hallway. He was carrying and reading some kind of paper. While I stared with open mouth and stunned silence, he glanced my way. He was every bit as startled to see me as I was to see him. It read all over his face. Then he just walked through the wall to the next apartment. He, too, looked like a full color hologram.
Both times I said approximately the same thing to these ghosts. "I know you are here, because I have seen you. I guess you mean me no harm or I would be harmed already. So, I assume we can peacefully coexist. Just don't let me ever see you again". I've never seen them again.
I have enough of a scientific bent not to want to believe there are ghosts, but I have seen the "living, breathing" evidence that there are. Well, in a ghostly way at least.
But, then, who cares what I know or think? I'm not a celebrity or a scientist.
The scientific dude says ghosts have never been scientifically proven, ergo they do not exist. I don't blame him for being a disbeliever. I was, too, for most of my life. There is nothing like seeing your first ghost to know that they are very, very real. It's most amusing when others you have known to be disbelievers see ghosts, also.
For instance, some friends of mine were moving into a new home. They were almost at the point of rage that anyone could believe there was such a thing. By the time they had spent twenty years there, they were singing a different tune. The previous homeowners had been dancers. My friends had looked up to see a man dressed in a Spanish dancer's costume checking out his outfit in a mirror. They said they sometimes heard people in the home talking. They couldn't hear and understand the words, just hear the voices.
I had seen my first ghost once before, but I didn't realize he was a ghost. I did wonder why the neighbor's who were doing their lawn work didn't acknowledge him when he was running around in glee and approaching them over and over. I shrugged and thought well, whatever.
Then one night I was home alone and came streaking out of a steamy bathroom. There he stood again, all smiley and friendly. I rushed into my bedroom and closed the door. Once I was dressed, I searched the apartment. All the locks and chains were in place. I was so sure there was no such thing as ghosts that I searched for days for some kind of secret entrance. I never found one.
I will have to say that he looked like a full color hologram that night, thus reinforcing the scary suspicion that I was seeing a spirit and not a live person.
Fifteen or more years later and in another apartment complex, I had another shock. There was a man I had seen visiting a neighbor on several occasions. That same man walked right through my upstairs hallway. He was carrying and reading some kind of paper. While I stared with open mouth and stunned silence, he glanced my way. He was every bit as startled to see me as I was to see him. It read all over his face. Then he just walked through the wall to the next apartment. He, too, looked like a full color hologram.
Both times I said approximately the same thing to these ghosts. "I know you are here, because I have seen you. I guess you mean me no harm or I would be harmed already. So, I assume we can peacefully coexist. Just don't let me ever see you again". I've never seen them again.
I have enough of a scientific bent not to want to believe there are ghosts, but I have seen the "living, breathing" evidence that there are. Well, in a ghostly way at least.
But, then, who cares what I know or think? I'm not a celebrity or a scientist.
Saturday, August 29, 2015
I Think We've Grown
I read a story in Guideposts today which inspired this article. I think I'm in a unique position to write it, because of the number of decades I have lived and what I know about changes in our society. I've also known people wounded by the old ways we handled things and those encouraged and helped by the new.
This story I read was somewhat typical of ones you hear or see from children given up for adoption or from the parents who made the decision to let them go. I think we Americans have grown a lot in my lifetime and that it has left us a more loving and compassionate people. I like to think that the Almighty and Jesus smile down upon us for this change.
I was born in 1938, a rather innocent and naïve time. I grew up in a mostly Christian neighborhood in a small city in Illinois. When World War II was finally over, we began to live our lives without the loneliness of our men being gone or the grief of yet another death of our military men.
Prior to the start of the war, I don't think very many people engaged in unmarried sex. But then I may be the most naïve. Women seemed to become less reserved as they knew the war was going to separate them and they might never see each other again. Where there is sex, there will be babies sometimes. People clung to each other and some wanted the children that might be the last tie they had to the man they loved.
After the war, we returned to the uptight, anal retentive, judgment making people we had been before the war. Maybe, the no no's about sex were even more severe. And, God forbid, anyone should get pregnant. There are tales of shotgun weddings and stories of young men who refused to face their responsibilities.
As far as I know, no girls in my neighborhood faced an unwanted pregnancy. A friend some distance away "fell in love" and found herself facing a mountain of trouble. Her family handled it in what was probably the worst possible way. They forced her to get an illegal abortion and forced the couple into a shotgun wedding as well. You know how long that marriage lasted! I ran into the girl some years later after I had gone away to school. Not knowing that I had run into a nurse with questionable integrity and a flapping mouth, she told me she had ruined her life -- but she didn't tell me why she felt that or what she had done to cause it. My heart still aches for her and for my inadequacy in dealing with the situation.
Television shows have shown the horror of parents, who in their own fear and unwarranted shame over "sex" and it's inevitable results (a beautiful little baby) have acted like monsters. Such parents shamed the young people, especially the girl. They sent her off to seclusion where caring (and sometimes evil) people tended them until the birth and then the parents and the staff forced the girls to give those babies away to loving and "well-to-do" couples who couldn't have children of their own. Oh, would that this had always been true. Some women decided on their own to let the children go to supposedly better lives.
These approaches have left generations of women searching for their babies, and even children who found good adoptive parents, wishing and searching for their natural moms. And these poor kids have a hole in their psyches from which we can almost hear the scream -- why couldn't you love us enough to keep us? How could you cast us away?
I won't duke it out with anybody whether the sexual revolution is good or bad, acceptable or evil. But I will attempt to describe a good side effect of it. Girls now get to keep their love children if they want. Parents don't have to become ogres who rip new babies from their baby's arms. Hospital personnel willingly list the birth father's name right along with the mother's. If the couple is compatible, they make a nest together and take their babies home. Families are inclined to encircle the young couple with love and support. Proud grandparents engage in their justifiable bragging rights.
Babies are a gift from God as the saying goes. And a marvelous gift one is.
I think this shows we have grown.
This story I read was somewhat typical of ones you hear or see from children given up for adoption or from the parents who made the decision to let them go. I think we Americans have grown a lot in my lifetime and that it has left us a more loving and compassionate people. I like to think that the Almighty and Jesus smile down upon us for this change.
I was born in 1938, a rather innocent and naïve time. I grew up in a mostly Christian neighborhood in a small city in Illinois. When World War II was finally over, we began to live our lives without the loneliness of our men being gone or the grief of yet another death of our military men.
Prior to the start of the war, I don't think very many people engaged in unmarried sex. But then I may be the most naïve. Women seemed to become less reserved as they knew the war was going to separate them and they might never see each other again. Where there is sex, there will be babies sometimes. People clung to each other and some wanted the children that might be the last tie they had to the man they loved.
After the war, we returned to the uptight, anal retentive, judgment making people we had been before the war. Maybe, the no no's about sex were even more severe. And, God forbid, anyone should get pregnant. There are tales of shotgun weddings and stories of young men who refused to face their responsibilities.
As far as I know, no girls in my neighborhood faced an unwanted pregnancy. A friend some distance away "fell in love" and found herself facing a mountain of trouble. Her family handled it in what was probably the worst possible way. They forced her to get an illegal abortion and forced the couple into a shotgun wedding as well. You know how long that marriage lasted! I ran into the girl some years later after I had gone away to school. Not knowing that I had run into a nurse with questionable integrity and a flapping mouth, she told me she had ruined her life -- but she didn't tell me why she felt that or what she had done to cause it. My heart still aches for her and for my inadequacy in dealing with the situation.
Television shows have shown the horror of parents, who in their own fear and unwarranted shame over "sex" and it's inevitable results (a beautiful little baby) have acted like monsters. Such parents shamed the young people, especially the girl. They sent her off to seclusion where caring (and sometimes evil) people tended them until the birth and then the parents and the staff forced the girls to give those babies away to loving and "well-to-do" couples who couldn't have children of their own. Oh, would that this had always been true. Some women decided on their own to let the children go to supposedly better lives.
These approaches have left generations of women searching for their babies, and even children who found good adoptive parents, wishing and searching for their natural moms. And these poor kids have a hole in their psyches from which we can almost hear the scream -- why couldn't you love us enough to keep us? How could you cast us away?
I won't duke it out with anybody whether the sexual revolution is good or bad, acceptable or evil. But I will attempt to describe a good side effect of it. Girls now get to keep their love children if they want. Parents don't have to become ogres who rip new babies from their baby's arms. Hospital personnel willingly list the birth father's name right along with the mother's. If the couple is compatible, they make a nest together and take their babies home. Families are inclined to encircle the young couple with love and support. Proud grandparents engage in their justifiable bragging rights.
Babies are a gift from God as the saying goes. And a marvelous gift one is.
I think this shows we have grown.
Sunday, August 9, 2015
You Can't Fix Stupid
The title of this article is one of my baby brother's favorite expressions. Often all we have to do is walk outside the door and say good morning to someone to find out why such a remark is so descriptive of life.
What gets under my skin, ad nauseam, is how people with such controversial jobs as those at Planned Parenthood could be "stupid" enough to say anything that could be used against the program, whether in or out of context.
Planned Parenthood, even if one abhors abortion, has a lot of value in society. It teaches, duh, planning pregnancies instead of having them by accident. It provides the sex education where needed. It helps young people cope with serious life issues.
Now, because individuals have sat around talking about crunching baby heads and buying expensive cars, our aggressively moralistic, conservative base has more fuel to fan the flames. Our young people could be without needed counseling. And medicine could potentially lose a valuable resource for determining how to fix our serious ailments.
And where are the morals of the people who sucker punched these individuals? They have none! All they have is an obsession and a faulty understanding of what God's mind really is. None of us know God's mind in this day and age. It's not just pastors who have lost touch with the Almighty. An obsession is a mental illness, not a righteous calling. Let's call it what it is.
What gets under my skin, ad nauseam, is how people with such controversial jobs as those at Planned Parenthood could be "stupid" enough to say anything that could be used against the program, whether in or out of context.
Planned Parenthood, even if one abhors abortion, has a lot of value in society. It teaches, duh, planning pregnancies instead of having them by accident. It provides the sex education where needed. It helps young people cope with serious life issues.
Now, because individuals have sat around talking about crunching baby heads and buying expensive cars, our aggressively moralistic, conservative base has more fuel to fan the flames. Our young people could be without needed counseling. And medicine could potentially lose a valuable resource for determining how to fix our serious ailments.
And where are the morals of the people who sucker punched these individuals? They have none! All they have is an obsession and a faulty understanding of what God's mind really is. None of us know God's mind in this day and age. It's not just pastors who have lost touch with the Almighty. An obsession is a mental illness, not a righteous calling. Let's call it what it is.
Friday, July 17, 2015
It Isn't Just The Drill We Fear
On a tooth cleaning mission recently, I noticed plaque was forming on my lower teeth. Instead of ruminating whether a heart attack is imminent, I thought, "OMG, I'm going to have to go to the dentist". Have you ever noticed how an appointment to have your teeth cleaned turns into a near lifetime commitment to the "chair"?
Before the dentist lets the dental assistant start the cleaning, he pokes, prods and examines every tooth. Then he schedules uncomfortable x-rays and finally you reach the cleaning stage. It's like the dentist takes possession of your mouth until every tooth has been drilled and filled, refilled and root canaled so not an original surface remains -- or he has cleaned out your bank account, whichever comes first.
All this to get rid of plaque? I can put it off another day, or until a filling drops out.
I think I could deal with the ordeal if they would ever ask how much you can afford or which teeth you want fixed. Instead, they assume they own your mouth because you walked through their doors. And they think we avoid them because we are afraid of the drill?
Before the dentist lets the dental assistant start the cleaning, he pokes, prods and examines every tooth. Then he schedules uncomfortable x-rays and finally you reach the cleaning stage. It's like the dentist takes possession of your mouth until every tooth has been drilled and filled, refilled and root canaled so not an original surface remains -- or he has cleaned out your bank account, whichever comes first.
All this to get rid of plaque? I can put it off another day, or until a filling drops out.
I think I could deal with the ordeal if they would ever ask how much you can afford or which teeth you want fixed. Instead, they assume they own your mouth because you walked through their doors. And they think we avoid them because we are afraid of the drill?
Thursday, June 18, 2015
The Curse Of Change
I've been to the main branch of the Kansas City, KS, library twice since they were closed for a week to orchestrate yet another change. Until today, the only change I had noticed was that the alphabetical guides did not match up with the order the books were shelved. It was a little better today. There did seem to be a lot less mysteries than previously. Today, I entered right across from the tub for returning books and walked right straight to it. There was a man there who volunteered to check in my books.
After I made my selections for new reads, I returned to the same spot. It was a light day, and the same man reached for the books and asked if I were ready to check out. I was instantaneously blindsided by another clerk who offered to teach me how to use "The Machine" to check them out. Now, a machine for such purposes is not necessarily new. I recall refusing to learn to use it after the last time they reopened. I clearly told him (same man, I think) that I definitely did not want to learn something new that day. I still don't. Apparently, nobody else does either, as in the several years since then I have not seen it used more than once. But, I guess we have no choices now. We will use the blankety blank thing, like it or lump it.
Why might I not like to use a machine? For the same reason anybody else wouldn't. It lacks the personal touch. Nobody is there to say, "Hey, how are you?" Nobody is there to answer questions. Nobody is there to tell that a book is falling apart. Just a cold, you know, lacking in warmth, hunk of metal
And, then, there is the problem of accuracy. The dude who showed me how to use it kept having to move the books around so all were recorded. That requires paying attention. That requires being on one's toes. That requires a little work -- and at the library for goodness sake -- when they are the ones getting the paycheck.
Let's not forget the main problem. As the job gets more and more automated, they will need less and less people to work there. Less people needed, less people hired. Less people hired, greater unemployment.
But then, there's a good side to less people after all. I've already put in my request to the Almighty for which clerks should go, beginning with the hateful man who answers the phone if you need to renew, right down to the clerk who forced me to use "The Machine" today (and the girl who laughed because he did it).
Things could be looking up after all. Don't let me down, God. Too bad He never listens to me.
Then, again, I could just use another of our local, more patron friendly, libraries -- Kansas City, MO, Johnson County, Midcontinent. I've used them all at some point. If enough of us did this, all these people would be unemployed. It's a thought! All of them could be the ones to deal with the curse of change.
After I made my selections for new reads, I returned to the same spot. It was a light day, and the same man reached for the books and asked if I were ready to check out. I was instantaneously blindsided by another clerk who offered to teach me how to use "The Machine" to check them out. Now, a machine for such purposes is not necessarily new. I recall refusing to learn to use it after the last time they reopened. I clearly told him (same man, I think) that I definitely did not want to learn something new that day. I still don't. Apparently, nobody else does either, as in the several years since then I have not seen it used more than once. But, I guess we have no choices now. We will use the blankety blank thing, like it or lump it.
Why might I not like to use a machine? For the same reason anybody else wouldn't. It lacks the personal touch. Nobody is there to say, "Hey, how are you?" Nobody is there to answer questions. Nobody is there to tell that a book is falling apart. Just a cold, you know, lacking in warmth, hunk of metal
And, then, there is the problem of accuracy. The dude who showed me how to use it kept having to move the books around so all were recorded. That requires paying attention. That requires being on one's toes. That requires a little work -- and at the library for goodness sake -- when they are the ones getting the paycheck.
Let's not forget the main problem. As the job gets more and more automated, they will need less and less people to work there. Less people needed, less people hired. Less people hired, greater unemployment.
But then, there's a good side to less people after all. I've already put in my request to the Almighty for which clerks should go, beginning with the hateful man who answers the phone if you need to renew, right down to the clerk who forced me to use "The Machine" today (and the girl who laughed because he did it).
Things could be looking up after all. Don't let me down, God. Too bad He never listens to me.
Then, again, I could just use another of our local, more patron friendly, libraries -- Kansas City, MO, Johnson County, Midcontinent. I've used them all at some point. If enough of us did this, all these people would be unemployed. It's a thought! All of them could be the ones to deal with the curse of change.
Friday, June 12, 2015
Perky
I received a free copy of Reader's Digest this week. I've always enjoyed the magazine, but when you have a "no budget" budget, some things just have to go. I opened it at once. By page 27, it had inspired this article. It says "Finish This Sentence. The title of my autobiography would be . . ."
Patti Ebben of Appleton, Wisconsin says, "Why Does My Cheerfulness Annoy You So?"
Oh, Patti, let me count the ways. I don't know you personally, of course. I don't even know if you are a celebrity or a hard working school teacher.
Let's just describe a few ways. I get to bed at 11:30 for a change. I'm just slipping away into dreamland and the idiot that leaves the neighborhood fire pit powwow revs his engine a few times, then takes off. Tonight it isn't enough to set off my car alarm just once. He goes around the block and tries again. Between 12:30 and 1:30, a neighbor slams the front door and moves rather noisily up the stairs. Somewhere around 3:00 to 3:30 another door is slammed. If I'm lucky enough to get back to sleep at this one, another neighbor makes up for it with a slam around 4:30. At 7:30 during the school year, the little guy right next door starts getting ready for school. He really loves those boots of his. I get to be grateful for silence for another hour. Then, it starts again. Finally, if I haven't given up already, I do it now.
I sit on the side of the bed waiting for my head to quit spinning (Eustachian tube failure), then as I pull myself up by holding onto my dresser, I'm reminded of the Robert Redford character in Electric Cowboy saying it takes a little longer for the "broke parts" to work. I throw on my robe, find my keys and billfold which I must carry all day, stop by to water the commode and then limp my way down the stairs. I flip on the television and there is little Miss Perky doing her thing. Well, actually, there is a perky 1 and perky 2 on this one sometimes. It depends on what life experience the other is letting it all hang out about, whether she is manic or morose. So I switch channels where the male anchor periodically has to calm their somewhat preferable version of cheerful. I give up and wait until 9:00 when I can get Perry Mason reruns. That show hasn't "changed" in decades (LOL) and I can always count on Della Street for a classy, upbeat, well-mannered version of cheerfulness. There's no dealing with a frisky puppy or an uncontrollable teenager before I get my morning cup of coffee.
Patti Ebben of Appleton, Wisconsin says, "Why Does My Cheerfulness Annoy You So?"
Oh, Patti, let me count the ways. I don't know you personally, of course. I don't even know if you are a celebrity or a hard working school teacher.
Let's just describe a few ways. I get to bed at 11:30 for a change. I'm just slipping away into dreamland and the idiot that leaves the neighborhood fire pit powwow revs his engine a few times, then takes off. Tonight it isn't enough to set off my car alarm just once. He goes around the block and tries again. Between 12:30 and 1:30, a neighbor slams the front door and moves rather noisily up the stairs. Somewhere around 3:00 to 3:30 another door is slammed. If I'm lucky enough to get back to sleep at this one, another neighbor makes up for it with a slam around 4:30. At 7:30 during the school year, the little guy right next door starts getting ready for school. He really loves those boots of his. I get to be grateful for silence for another hour. Then, it starts again. Finally, if I haven't given up already, I do it now.
I sit on the side of the bed waiting for my head to quit spinning (Eustachian tube failure), then as I pull myself up by holding onto my dresser, I'm reminded of the Robert Redford character in Electric Cowboy saying it takes a little longer for the "broke parts" to work. I throw on my robe, find my keys and billfold which I must carry all day, stop by to water the commode and then limp my way down the stairs. I flip on the television and there is little Miss Perky doing her thing. Well, actually, there is a perky 1 and perky 2 on this one sometimes. It depends on what life experience the other is letting it all hang out about, whether she is manic or morose. So I switch channels where the male anchor periodically has to calm their somewhat preferable version of cheerful. I give up and wait until 9:00 when I can get Perry Mason reruns. That show hasn't "changed" in decades (LOL) and I can always count on Della Street for a classy, upbeat, well-mannered version of cheerfulness. There's no dealing with a frisky puppy or an uncontrollable teenager before I get my morning cup of coffee.
Friday, April 17, 2015
"Matchy, Matchy" Versus Tacky, Tacky
The fad not to be all "matchy, matchy",
Has truly become quite tacky, tacky.
I've lived so long, I've see all kinds of styles for dress and interior decorating. What for one generation is a sign of poor taste will become a fad a couple of generations later. But, really folks, the styles of the young stylists and decorators are going to invoke the need for eye transplants if we don't watch out. We are subjected to clashing, gaudy colors and clashing, clashing patterns ad nauseam.
Once in a while, we win some when the fads change. Some of my favorite color combinations today were once forbidden as style ineptitude. The use of brown with black as well as blue with green were seen as faux pas when I was in elementary school. I remember the great pleasure I found in the blouse I got after high school which showed a rusty brown and black on a white background. It was around all of the time after that. The banishment of blue against green was perhaps the most mysterious rule. I don't know how designers and decorators could have looked at God's blue sky against a green hill and found something wrong with that. Finally, they got some sense. We use them together in all shades and tints now.
During the early eighties, the big thing was to consult a specialist to find out our colors. We were divided into four groups based on the seasons. There were certain colors a "winter" should and shouldn't wear. Actually, most of the time it did improve the way women looked. The biggest mistake of this trend was telling us if we couldn't match the hem of our skirts with our shoes, then we should wear shoes that matched our hair. I still get a toothache thinking of seeing a woman in a print dress of wine and white and black print wearing rust colored shoes that did, indeed, match her poorly dyed hair. And, no, I would never say a word. Doing that would be in poor taste. She was an acquaintance who had just paid a color consultant for advice. By the way, our seasons of color were based on our skin tones and eye and hair color.
The trend not to be all "matchy, matchy", has been around a while. Apparently this new generation of style gurus sees something wrong with having shoes and purse in the same color, so they might choose black shoes with a red purse and an outfit that neither matches nor complements the combo. Say what? I've seen some lulus being shown as "a proper way to dress."
There is a long-term trend I can't wait to see end. This thing of having a blouse or shirt hanging out below a sweater or vest, like a high school kid's mother's worst nightmare, is a fad that should have had no beginning. It's almost as bizarre as watching a teenager's underpants show above his jeans or shorts.
The nightmare trends in decorating are almost as bad. A person could go cross eyed looking at pictures of rooms that combine geometrics with plaids, stripes, etc., etc., etc. It really does assail the senses. One or two predominant designs per room is really quite enough. Overkill in any endeavor has never been in good taste, fad or not.
And then there is the problem of designers going in and telling a client that their current scheme is not "them" at all. Now how in the world would the designer know what "them" is? Besides, it's downright rude. One article published had the designer telling the client that silks and colors were not them and switching the client to fabric that looked like pillow ticking -- changing her from luxury fabric to something that is commonplace among poor people who can't afford sheets and pillow cases. Beware of designers looking for work.
Just about bottom line is that nobody knows what you like better than you, no matter how experienced, famous or wealthy they are. If you feel peace or serenity or get a sense of thrill when you walk into a room, then you are the expert on what is you. I've heard such bizarre things as "you shouldn't use end tables at either end of a couch. You shouldn't use tables as they were designed to be used? Get real. But never fear, next year or the year after, everything will change again. How else can they keep those dollars rolling into their coffers if they leave everything the same?
Has truly become quite tacky, tacky.
I've lived so long, I've see all kinds of styles for dress and interior decorating. What for one generation is a sign of poor taste will become a fad a couple of generations later. But, really folks, the styles of the young stylists and decorators are going to invoke the need for eye transplants if we don't watch out. We are subjected to clashing, gaudy colors and clashing, clashing patterns ad nauseam.
Once in a while, we win some when the fads change. Some of my favorite color combinations today were once forbidden as style ineptitude. The use of brown with black as well as blue with green were seen as faux pas when I was in elementary school. I remember the great pleasure I found in the blouse I got after high school which showed a rusty brown and black on a white background. It was around all of the time after that. The banishment of blue against green was perhaps the most mysterious rule. I don't know how designers and decorators could have looked at God's blue sky against a green hill and found something wrong with that. Finally, they got some sense. We use them together in all shades and tints now.
During the early eighties, the big thing was to consult a specialist to find out our colors. We were divided into four groups based on the seasons. There were certain colors a "winter" should and shouldn't wear. Actually, most of the time it did improve the way women looked. The biggest mistake of this trend was telling us if we couldn't match the hem of our skirts with our shoes, then we should wear shoes that matched our hair. I still get a toothache thinking of seeing a woman in a print dress of wine and white and black print wearing rust colored shoes that did, indeed, match her poorly dyed hair. And, no, I would never say a word. Doing that would be in poor taste. She was an acquaintance who had just paid a color consultant for advice. By the way, our seasons of color were based on our skin tones and eye and hair color.
The trend not to be all "matchy, matchy", has been around a while. Apparently this new generation of style gurus sees something wrong with having shoes and purse in the same color, so they might choose black shoes with a red purse and an outfit that neither matches nor complements the combo. Say what? I've seen some lulus being shown as "a proper way to dress."
There is a long-term trend I can't wait to see end. This thing of having a blouse or shirt hanging out below a sweater or vest, like a high school kid's mother's worst nightmare, is a fad that should have had no beginning. It's almost as bizarre as watching a teenager's underpants show above his jeans or shorts.
The nightmare trends in decorating are almost as bad. A person could go cross eyed looking at pictures of rooms that combine geometrics with plaids, stripes, etc., etc., etc. It really does assail the senses. One or two predominant designs per room is really quite enough. Overkill in any endeavor has never been in good taste, fad or not.
And then there is the problem of designers going in and telling a client that their current scheme is not "them" at all. Now how in the world would the designer know what "them" is? Besides, it's downright rude. One article published had the designer telling the client that silks and colors were not them and switching the client to fabric that looked like pillow ticking -- changing her from luxury fabric to something that is commonplace among poor people who can't afford sheets and pillow cases. Beware of designers looking for work.
Just about bottom line is that nobody knows what you like better than you, no matter how experienced, famous or wealthy they are. If you feel peace or serenity or get a sense of thrill when you walk into a room, then you are the expert on what is you. I've heard such bizarre things as "you shouldn't use end tables at either end of a couch. You shouldn't use tables as they were designed to be used? Get real. But never fear, next year or the year after, everything will change again. How else can they keep those dollars rolling into their coffers if they leave everything the same?
Tuesday, March 31, 2015
Sexual Orientation -- Not A Choice -- Physiology
About the only humans who can choose their sexual orientation are those born bisexual. We simply are wired how we are wired and nothing in this age can change that. In my article "Probably Not The Final Word, But . . .", I presented my somewhat alien theory that an increase in gay and lesbian populations in each great empire may be caused by overcrowding, and it would still be physiological if that were to prove the case. I will even venture to say that if you are absolutely sure that it is a choice because, based on your experience, you made the righteous choice, then you are probably wired both ways. Apparently Freud was, as he saw all humans as being closet gays.
Picture the struggle of the young male, who with the children in his neighborhood, called the enemies by the worst word they could think about -- faggots. Have you ever thought of the mental issues derived from his struggle when he begins to realize he is gay? This is not his choice. This is how he was born. I've seen it happen.
I think the problem of the human species, which shows its ugly head in a lot of controversies, is that we want to hold ourselves as superior to all other species. We think we are better than a cow or a horse or a worm or a snake and therefore we spend our time and efforts in trying to prove so.
"They are acting like animals," is a frequent complaint. Well, they are animals and so are the rest of us. So generations of humans have exerted great efforts to prove their basic wish that they are better than other species and better than each other.
The Jewish and Christian scriptures tell of God creating first man and first woman. First man was placed in the garden which God had made in the east of Eden. He was told he could eat from all the trees but the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Many cultures today still translate sex as the "fruit of that tree" from which Adam was not to eat. Big error, folks! Adam was put in the garden and told not to eat of the tree even before God made the animals . . . way before He made Eve. So, the forbidden fruit really was about knowledge and good and evil. It was not about sex.
It's easier, now that we have spent so much time worrying about the Middle East and seeing the ugliness of the hate there, for us to understand how the oral stories of early man became so conflicted that sex became the eternal sin. But when you think about it, modern man can turn anything into a sin. "If it tastes good, it must be bad for you." "If it is greasy thou shalt not touch it." "Oh, wow, we were wrong! It's sugar we should avoid." And, "I'm so much superior to you because I don't touch either one."
Sex of some sort is how animals of all sorts reproduce. Sex is not only physiological, it is a biological requirement of maintaining the species, no matter what kind we are.
Now, we get to the chemistry of it all. Our bodies respond chemically -- physically -- to each other, or not. Since the demise of my marriage, I've spent more than twice as many years single as I was married. I've had plenty of time to figure out a "type" to which my body can and cannot respond. Ideal man almost always would be between size 5'8" and 5' 10" or 11". He would have some shade of brown hair or either pure white. He would be of stocky build and barrel chested. He would almost never have blonde or black hair. And he should be within a decade of my own age, either way.
I even classify "turn-ons" as primary or secondary. You know how some people swear they fell in love at first sight, but others say that's not possible, because they don't know each other. That love at first sight is chemistry at first sight and for rare people, it can be so strong that it lasts a lifetime. There are, of course, exceptions to all "rules" of chemical attraction -- like a predilection for scrawny little redheads, even after their hair has gone white.
A secondary "turn-on" is a relationship that wasn't much at first sight, but grows from getting to know each other and appreciating each other's good qualities like kindness, intelligence, compatibility. Herein lies the love part, folks.
I think the primary turn-on has a basis in physiology that goes even beyond simple attraction. Let's say, a 6' 7" man and a 5' 0" woman were to marry. It doesn't take much brainwork to anticipate that she will have trouble delivering his children, does it? So the body usually makes subtle and subconscious choices for us from the get-go.
You see, chemistry rules some choices in and some choices out. But it is how we get on outside the bedrooms that should choose our mates. If we have to place a "religious" evaluation on sexual orientation, perhaps we can choose to leave sexual orientation and choice of mates in God's hands. Since God remains mostly silent these days, we might have trouble reading his wishes. But still, whether we have a choice of whom our bodies respond to is based on how God created us. Whom we choose as mates depends on how well we get along with each other. The longer we spend together, the more the love grows, or not.
No wonder people revel in the right to choose their own mates. How can our parents know what person inspires our chemistry or what one repels us? How can the right person who can work things out best with us be chosen by a father who has his eye out toward building his own empire?
Yet, people want to ignore their animal instincts -- chemistry -- by referring to all sexual attraction as "love", and the more romantic, the better. You can help whom you love. Whom you hang around with, grow close to and eventually marry is a choice. It's just that the body responds without control, but love grows when we choose the best people to whom the body responds -- the ones who meet our nonsexual needs as well.
We should not place ourselves as critics of another's choice, especially the physiological part which is not in our control. We should not choose another man's mate any more than we would want him to choose ours. And we bloody well are not superior to any other being whether our species or not.
Picture the struggle of the young male, who with the children in his neighborhood, called the enemies by the worst word they could think about -- faggots. Have you ever thought of the mental issues derived from his struggle when he begins to realize he is gay? This is not his choice. This is how he was born. I've seen it happen.
I think the problem of the human species, which shows its ugly head in a lot of controversies, is that we want to hold ourselves as superior to all other species. We think we are better than a cow or a horse or a worm or a snake and therefore we spend our time and efforts in trying to prove so.
"They are acting like animals," is a frequent complaint. Well, they are animals and so are the rest of us. So generations of humans have exerted great efforts to prove their basic wish that they are better than other species and better than each other.
The Jewish and Christian scriptures tell of God creating first man and first woman. First man was placed in the garden which God had made in the east of Eden. He was told he could eat from all the trees but the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Many cultures today still translate sex as the "fruit of that tree" from which Adam was not to eat. Big error, folks! Adam was put in the garden and told not to eat of the tree even before God made the animals . . . way before He made Eve. So, the forbidden fruit really was about knowledge and good and evil. It was not about sex.
It's easier, now that we have spent so much time worrying about the Middle East and seeing the ugliness of the hate there, for us to understand how the oral stories of early man became so conflicted that sex became the eternal sin. But when you think about it, modern man can turn anything into a sin. "If it tastes good, it must be bad for you." "If it is greasy thou shalt not touch it." "Oh, wow, we were wrong! It's sugar we should avoid." And, "I'm so much superior to you because I don't touch either one."
Sex of some sort is how animals of all sorts reproduce. Sex is not only physiological, it is a biological requirement of maintaining the species, no matter what kind we are.
Now, we get to the chemistry of it all. Our bodies respond chemically -- physically -- to each other, or not. Since the demise of my marriage, I've spent more than twice as many years single as I was married. I've had plenty of time to figure out a "type" to which my body can and cannot respond. Ideal man almost always would be between size 5'8" and 5' 10" or 11". He would have some shade of brown hair or either pure white. He would be of stocky build and barrel chested. He would almost never have blonde or black hair. And he should be within a decade of my own age, either way.
I even classify "turn-ons" as primary or secondary. You know how some people swear they fell in love at first sight, but others say that's not possible, because they don't know each other. That love at first sight is chemistry at first sight and for rare people, it can be so strong that it lasts a lifetime. There are, of course, exceptions to all "rules" of chemical attraction -- like a predilection for scrawny little redheads, even after their hair has gone white.
A secondary "turn-on" is a relationship that wasn't much at first sight, but grows from getting to know each other and appreciating each other's good qualities like kindness, intelligence, compatibility. Herein lies the love part, folks.
I think the primary turn-on has a basis in physiology that goes even beyond simple attraction. Let's say, a 6' 7" man and a 5' 0" woman were to marry. It doesn't take much brainwork to anticipate that she will have trouble delivering his children, does it? So the body usually makes subtle and subconscious choices for us from the get-go.
You see, chemistry rules some choices in and some choices out. But it is how we get on outside the bedrooms that should choose our mates. If we have to place a "religious" evaluation on sexual orientation, perhaps we can choose to leave sexual orientation and choice of mates in God's hands. Since God remains mostly silent these days, we might have trouble reading his wishes. But still, whether we have a choice of whom our bodies respond to is based on how God created us. Whom we choose as mates depends on how well we get along with each other. The longer we spend together, the more the love grows, or not.
No wonder people revel in the right to choose their own mates. How can our parents know what person inspires our chemistry or what one repels us? How can the right person who can work things out best with us be chosen by a father who has his eye out toward building his own empire?
Yet, people want to ignore their animal instincts -- chemistry -- by referring to all sexual attraction as "love", and the more romantic, the better. You can help whom you love. Whom you hang around with, grow close to and eventually marry is a choice. It's just that the body responds without control, but love grows when we choose the best people to whom the body responds -- the ones who meet our nonsexual needs as well.
We should not place ourselves as critics of another's choice, especially the physiological part which is not in our control. We should not choose another man's mate any more than we would want him to choose ours. And we bloody well are not superior to any other being whether our species or not.
Monday, March 30, 2015
Obedience
John Ruskin, an author who critiqued art and architecture during the 1800's, is said to have had the following architectural ideals -- obedience, truth, power, beauty, life, memory and sacrifice. Good thing I'm not an architect because I can't fathom a building obeying anyone or anything. How about you? But then, obeying was never my greatest skill when I was young. Don't misunderstand. I wasn't one of those disobedient kids at school. I did everything by the book there. I even told on myself for slapping the kid that kissed me at recess. It was first grade.
Nevertheless, I had a bad rep at home. My mother found herself driven to exquisite forms of punishment over my "sassy" mouth. It was so bad that one of my brothers told me that I had always been the most rebellious person he had ever known. I told him I thought I'd always had a lot to rebel against.
Why is it people are told they need to obey everyone? We got a stomach full of it at church. We were to obey God, our parents, our teachers, our older neighbors, our older siblings and on and on and on. "Trust and obey, for there's no other way. . ."
If our parents neglected to teach obedience, we got another goodly measure of it at school. Come on little ducklings. Get yourselves all in a row. Even the birds assume a V formation. Everyone in their place and a place for everyone. Get back in that line. Keep your lines straight.
Then when we get through twelve or thirteen years of conforming obedience, they start yelling for us to think outside the box. Duh!
Mind your p's and q's. Listen to your teacher. Don't you dare stray from the group. Take care of your "due diligence". They take the creativity right out of life with all their rule making. Federal law. State law. County, city, coop, school . . . rules, rules, rules. Well, you've got your rules so embedded that we almost flip out when someone runs into us because he is walking down the left side of a hallway. Didn't he learn anything in school?
And then we have Mr. Ruskin saying a building needs to have obedience. Really now! Aren't you the original little ole control freak? Even inanimate objects are required to obey you. Or are they? Inanimate, I mean! A building stands there proudly, larger than life and exuding beauty, obedience, truth, power, life, memory and sacrifice . . .
. . . exuding "creativity", which from obedience doth not come.
Nevertheless, I had a bad rep at home. My mother found herself driven to exquisite forms of punishment over my "sassy" mouth. It was so bad that one of my brothers told me that I had always been the most rebellious person he had ever known. I told him I thought I'd always had a lot to rebel against.
Why is it people are told they need to obey everyone? We got a stomach full of it at church. We were to obey God, our parents, our teachers, our older neighbors, our older siblings and on and on and on. "Trust and obey, for there's no other way. . ."
If our parents neglected to teach obedience, we got another goodly measure of it at school. Come on little ducklings. Get yourselves all in a row. Even the birds assume a V formation. Everyone in their place and a place for everyone. Get back in that line. Keep your lines straight.
Then when we get through twelve or thirteen years of conforming obedience, they start yelling for us to think outside the box. Duh!
Mind your p's and q's. Listen to your teacher. Don't you dare stray from the group. Take care of your "due diligence". They take the creativity right out of life with all their rule making. Federal law. State law. County, city, coop, school . . . rules, rules, rules. Well, you've got your rules so embedded that we almost flip out when someone runs into us because he is walking down the left side of a hallway. Didn't he learn anything in school?
And then we have Mr. Ruskin saying a building needs to have obedience. Really now! Aren't you the original little ole control freak? Even inanimate objects are required to obey you. Or are they? Inanimate, I mean! A building stands there proudly, larger than life and exuding beauty, obedience, truth, power, life, memory and sacrifice . . .
. . . exuding "creativity", which from obedience doth not come.
Friday, March 20, 2015
Game Playing In Everyday Life
Some people become so bored with their jobs that they begin to engage in game playing. Most of you know about game playing by this time. Transactional Analysis, a phenomenon I refer to as a layman's approach to psychology, describes games as ways of structuring time. They can be either conscious or subconscious. In other words, we can be either aware or unaware that we have gotten ourselves caught up in games. But that doesn't make them any less real.
They can be played by clerks and secretaries in offices. They can be played by teachers. Even psychologists and psychiatrists can find themselves engaged in them. It would not be unheard of to find anyone, say mail carriers, involved.
The problem with games is that they leave no winners. Everyone walks away from games with bad feelings. The victim, of course, feels the put-down he was meant to feel. But the perpetrator never quite gets the desired satisfaction much less the high he is seeking. Best for all concerned that we all try to avoid starting or getting hooked in games.
They can be played by clerks and secretaries in offices. They can be played by teachers. Even psychologists and psychiatrists can find themselves engaged in them. It would not be unheard of to find anyone, say mail carriers, involved.
The problem with games is that they leave no winners. Everyone walks away from games with bad feelings. The victim, of course, feels the put-down he was meant to feel. But the perpetrator never quite gets the desired satisfaction much less the high he is seeking. Best for all concerned that we all try to avoid starting or getting hooked in games.
Tuesday, March 3, 2015
Sour Grapes or Religious Fact?
There are several mentions on Facebook that criticize what are being called "prosperity" religious programs. You know the ones -- they tell us that God wants his people to have abundance in their lives. Some of the criticisms mention specific programs. Others are just general messages.
One such critique told of a man and his wife who were students living in near poverty conditions. The gentleman said they really wanted to believe that God would offer abundance to his children who truly believed and who tithed their income. But it apparently did not work out for them.
My experience with these types of ministers is limited to Oral Roberts, Kenneth Copeland and Joel Osteen. They have all at one time or another taught those of us who will listen that it is necessary to stay in the faith while believing God for a financial -- or healing -- or whatever needed -- miracle in our lives. Telling God every other day that his assistance is lacking or a day late and a dollar short hardly qualifies as staying in the faith.
What these ministers offer is hope and a positive approach to religion. If you had heard some of the hellfire and brimstone sermons that I have heard over the years, you would welcome such ministers with open arms. Jesus, himself, though not one hundred per cent positive was certainly not one of the hellfire and brimstone types. He taught love and faith and hope and charity. He taught us not to judge others. He taught us to turn the other cheek. He said we should cast the first stone only if we, ourselves, were above reproach.
I think with some of the authors of these critiques, we see a little sour grapes. While the critic's churches are dwindling in attendance, the "prosperity" preachers have to find sports arenas to hold their crowds.
Perhaps one way to determine the genuine belief and trustworthiness of the pastors is to look for examples of faith rewarded in them and their families. For instance, Joel Osteen tells a story about his mother's desire to have her own swimming pool. For years and years, she prayed for a pool. She positively stated she was going to have one. She measured the space and told everyone that was where it would be put. Her husband was always very negative about the idea. They couldn't afford it he would say. Then, one day someone told him that he wanted to give the family a swimming pool. Dear old dad responded in the negative about the prospect. But Joel's mother gratefully accepted. When her husband donned swimming trunks to swim with the family, she jokingly told him that he couldn't swim in her pool This kind of faith is a telling factor in the family belief system. And possibly it is the main reason God listens to and rewards their positive prayers.
There are sometimes other factors why God doesn't give us a positive answer to our prayers. For instance, sometimes we need the lessons we can learn from doing without our heart's desires. Sometimes he is preparing us for our greatest challenges.
Joel Osteen always cautions us by saying that we will have the finances, skills and resources to fulfill whatever plan God wants us to handle as long as we stay in the faith.
Do you suffer from sour grape syndrome, or are you one of the positive thinkers?
One such critique told of a man and his wife who were students living in near poverty conditions. The gentleman said they really wanted to believe that God would offer abundance to his children who truly believed and who tithed their income. But it apparently did not work out for them.
My experience with these types of ministers is limited to Oral Roberts, Kenneth Copeland and Joel Osteen. They have all at one time or another taught those of us who will listen that it is necessary to stay in the faith while believing God for a financial -- or healing -- or whatever needed -- miracle in our lives. Telling God every other day that his assistance is lacking or a day late and a dollar short hardly qualifies as staying in the faith.
What these ministers offer is hope and a positive approach to religion. If you had heard some of the hellfire and brimstone sermons that I have heard over the years, you would welcome such ministers with open arms. Jesus, himself, though not one hundred per cent positive was certainly not one of the hellfire and brimstone types. He taught love and faith and hope and charity. He taught us not to judge others. He taught us to turn the other cheek. He said we should cast the first stone only if we, ourselves, were above reproach.
I think with some of the authors of these critiques, we see a little sour grapes. While the critic's churches are dwindling in attendance, the "prosperity" preachers have to find sports arenas to hold their crowds.
Perhaps one way to determine the genuine belief and trustworthiness of the pastors is to look for examples of faith rewarded in them and their families. For instance, Joel Osteen tells a story about his mother's desire to have her own swimming pool. For years and years, she prayed for a pool. She positively stated she was going to have one. She measured the space and told everyone that was where it would be put. Her husband was always very negative about the idea. They couldn't afford it he would say. Then, one day someone told him that he wanted to give the family a swimming pool. Dear old dad responded in the negative about the prospect. But Joel's mother gratefully accepted. When her husband donned swimming trunks to swim with the family, she jokingly told him that he couldn't swim in her pool This kind of faith is a telling factor in the family belief system. And possibly it is the main reason God listens to and rewards their positive prayers.
There are sometimes other factors why God doesn't give us a positive answer to our prayers. For instance, sometimes we need the lessons we can learn from doing without our heart's desires. Sometimes he is preparing us for our greatest challenges.
Joel Osteen always cautions us by saying that we will have the finances, skills and resources to fulfill whatever plan God wants us to handle as long as we stay in the faith.
Do you suffer from sour grape syndrome, or are you one of the positive thinkers?
Monday, February 23, 2015
Twenty-one Christians
There is a posting going around Facebook which lists the twenty-one people of the mass group killed by ISIS or ISIL terrorists. The names are given for twenty of them (one is listed as worker), so that we can pray for them by name. I have done this, though I'm sure I mangled their names. But nice thing about it, God, as the trinity, will recognize them anyway.
I would like to add an extra element to that prayer which I hope Christian after Christian will add to their petitions to the Almighty.
I pray that each of the individual twenty-one people who participated in the deaths of these Christians be caught and brought to justice for this. May any individual who kills Christians anywhere be brought to this same kind of justice.
Father, I thank you in advance for your help in this matter.
I would like to add an extra element to that prayer which I hope Christian after Christian will add to their petitions to the Almighty.
I pray that each of the individual twenty-one people who participated in the deaths of these Christians be caught and brought to justice for this. May any individual who kills Christians anywhere be brought to this same kind of justice.
Father, I thank you in advance for your help in this matter.
Wednesday, February 11, 2015
The Law and Vaccines
The handful of Americans who read my blogs are aware that I frequently write about basic human rights (Yes, I have a better audience in other countries than I have here). Remember how I explain them? Don't I always say that as long as I don't infringe on the rights of others, you don't have the right to tell me what to do? Implied in this definition of basic human rights is that I have no right to harm my neighbors and they have no right to bring harm to me and my family. Well, on what planet is it okay to expose others to killer diseases and viruses if there is a way to prevent those illnesses?
Enters the modern parent, the one who heard of a research project that suggested that the MMR vaccine might be the cause of autism. In comes the paranoid fear of all vaccines. The parent becomes so fearful that he/she/they refuse all vaccines for the children.
As in many, many situations, it would behoove all such parents to consult their elders. Take me, for example. I had measles -- two kinds, apparently. I had mumps. I had chicken pox. A friend and neighbor lived out his years in an iron lung because he contracted polio as a child. A relative had mumps as an adult and was unable to sire children afterward.
There are/were doctors who have dedicated their lives to developing vaccines to keep us from harm. They have stopped endless itching, threats to our vision, complications of fallen mumps, weeks of isolation, scars and death. But we won't realize that protection without the vaccines.
It's amazing how many families here refused the vaccines on behalf of their children's health when what they are doing is risking that health. Until recently, our country has seen few victims of these horrendous ailments, but that is changing. Indeed, we even have reason to fear that enemies may deliberately expose us to these and worse contagions.
Parents can be vehement about not wanting their children to be exposed to the risk of autism. But how are they going to feel if it is their child that is the one in a hundred, a thousand, or ten thousand that dies from an illness that a vaccine could have prevented?
Each generation becomes better informed, more savvy and more assertive about child care. We take more and more responsibility over what happens to our children. But we are not always right!
So, to our government officials, I say this. It is okay to use the law to protect the country concerning vaccines. If it were only our own lives or our children's lives we were risking, that would be one thing. But it is not okay for people to threaten the general population for any reason except for a child's preexisting medical concerns. No, not even religion should stop you in this cause.
Besides, the results of that first study have been refuted. Researcher after researcher has discovered that he/she could not replicate the results. Whether on purpose, or by accident, that doctor got the wrong results. If it were not so, other researchers would have gotten his results, too. That means MMR vaccines are not what causes autism. That cause still has not been discovered.
Enters the modern parent, the one who heard of a research project that suggested that the MMR vaccine might be the cause of autism. In comes the paranoid fear of all vaccines. The parent becomes so fearful that he/she/they refuse all vaccines for the children.
As in many, many situations, it would behoove all such parents to consult their elders. Take me, for example. I had measles -- two kinds, apparently. I had mumps. I had chicken pox. A friend and neighbor lived out his years in an iron lung because he contracted polio as a child. A relative had mumps as an adult and was unable to sire children afterward.
There are/were doctors who have dedicated their lives to developing vaccines to keep us from harm. They have stopped endless itching, threats to our vision, complications of fallen mumps, weeks of isolation, scars and death. But we won't realize that protection without the vaccines.
It's amazing how many families here refused the vaccines on behalf of their children's health when what they are doing is risking that health. Until recently, our country has seen few victims of these horrendous ailments, but that is changing. Indeed, we even have reason to fear that enemies may deliberately expose us to these and worse contagions.
Parents can be vehement about not wanting their children to be exposed to the risk of autism. But how are they going to feel if it is their child that is the one in a hundred, a thousand, or ten thousand that dies from an illness that a vaccine could have prevented?
Each generation becomes better informed, more savvy and more assertive about child care. We take more and more responsibility over what happens to our children. But we are not always right!
So, to our government officials, I say this. It is okay to use the law to protect the country concerning vaccines. If it were only our own lives or our children's lives we were risking, that would be one thing. But it is not okay for people to threaten the general population for any reason except for a child's preexisting medical concerns. No, not even religion should stop you in this cause.
Besides, the results of that first study have been refuted. Researcher after researcher has discovered that he/she could not replicate the results. Whether on purpose, or by accident, that doctor got the wrong results. If it were not so, other researchers would have gotten his results, too. That means MMR vaccines are not what causes autism. That cause still has not been discovered.
Sunday, February 1, 2015
A Cut-Throat Perspective
Deflate-gate, physically hurting our competitors, using steroids and other drugs -- all in the name of winning -- is downright disgusting! "Well, others are doing it, so I will, too." Well, others didn't get caught. You did.
The human soul is becoming totally corrupt. Everywhere we turn, sociopaths prevail. Is it in our DNA now? Has it always been? Or, has people's abuse of alcohol and other drugs spun a mutation of sorts, an error in the human genome?
Whatever the cause, the spin is out of control beginning with what we value and what we respect. However in this world did we get to the point that athletics and sports became centermost in our lives? They override Broadway, movies, television, family, church and home. Today, as "ninety-nine and forty-four one hundredths percent" of American citizens stop to view the big game, we find the sociopathic efforts to win hanging a veil of shame over the activities.
It is said that more than half the footballs used by the playoff winners were deflated, which gave them an advantage. Was it an accident? Odds are it was not, considering the number in question. Will we ever know who did it? The why is easy. To win. The how -- yes, how in this world could someone carry out such a thing after the balls were inspected? And why don't the teams use the same balls anyway?
In this never ending age of the "media pounce", it is insane to think such a thing would go unnoticed and unspoken.
Now, the team that won the playoffs will never know for sure that they really earned the right to go to the Super Bowl. Neither will the fans. Odds are they would have won without cheating, but nobody will ever know conclusively. Likewise, if they win the Super Bowl, nobody will ever know if they should have.
But the most basic question of all is, in this day of injuring our opponents to get them out of the game, what has happened to our basic value system that athletics, sports, or anything else should have become so worshipped that we would risk our very moral fiber just to win?
An underlying theme the first Rocky movie portrayed (long past forgotten), second best can sometimes feel very good. So, let's forget this everlasting cut-throat perspective and return sports to their proper place in this world. They are but a source of entertainment. It is not a basic need of mankind to win, win, win. Tainting athletics is not going to put food and water on the table or a roof over the head. It is just going to bring shame to all.
The human soul is becoming totally corrupt. Everywhere we turn, sociopaths prevail. Is it in our DNA now? Has it always been? Or, has people's abuse of alcohol and other drugs spun a mutation of sorts, an error in the human genome?
Whatever the cause, the spin is out of control beginning with what we value and what we respect. However in this world did we get to the point that athletics and sports became centermost in our lives? They override Broadway, movies, television, family, church and home. Today, as "ninety-nine and forty-four one hundredths percent" of American citizens stop to view the big game, we find the sociopathic efforts to win hanging a veil of shame over the activities.
It is said that more than half the footballs used by the playoff winners were deflated, which gave them an advantage. Was it an accident? Odds are it was not, considering the number in question. Will we ever know who did it? The why is easy. To win. The how -- yes, how in this world could someone carry out such a thing after the balls were inspected? And why don't the teams use the same balls anyway?
In this never ending age of the "media pounce", it is insane to think such a thing would go unnoticed and unspoken.
Now, the team that won the playoffs will never know for sure that they really earned the right to go to the Super Bowl. Neither will the fans. Odds are they would have won without cheating, but nobody will ever know conclusively. Likewise, if they win the Super Bowl, nobody will ever know if they should have.
But the most basic question of all is, in this day of injuring our opponents to get them out of the game, what has happened to our basic value system that athletics, sports, or anything else should have become so worshipped that we would risk our very moral fiber just to win?
An underlying theme the first Rocky movie portrayed (long past forgotten), second best can sometimes feel very good. So, let's forget this everlasting cut-throat perspective and return sports to their proper place in this world. They are but a source of entertainment. It is not a basic need of mankind to win, win, win. Tainting athletics is not going to put food and water on the table or a roof over the head. It is just going to bring shame to all.
Thursday, January 22, 2015
Basic Human Rights Revisited
According to "Encore in Iowa" by Mike Sherer, Time Magazine, January 26, 2015, Mike Huckabee is running for President again. Per Sherer, he recently compared Americans with the Nazis -- the ones who abort their babies with the ones who caused the Holocaust. He stated that fifty-five million babies have been murdered in their mother's own wombs.
First, I've not had a lot of exposure to Mr. Huckabee, but up until this time, I've always been rather fond of him.
Second, I've no idea whether his figures are correct and don't intend to research it. Fifty-five million?
Third, find a new platform! I just read and heard today that Republican women are taking a stand against the Republican position on abortion. I don't know why Americans persist in telling each other what to do. It is an invasion of privacy, none of your business and extremely archaic. It's almost as radical as Muslim extremists who stone each other for adultery.
Let me go on record once more! I have never had an unwanted pregnancy. I have never had an abortion. I don't believe that any woman in my family has ever had one. I know for a fact that we would welcome any children that God gifted to us and be grateful for them. I am not a proponent of abortion, per se. I am a proponent of a woman's - a couple's -- right to choose!
You do not have the right to decide whether the Catholic couple next door to you has to keep the tenth or twelfth baby just because the rhythm method failed them. You do not have the right to tell the Baptist couple next door that they have to feed an extra mouth when they already work four jobs between them and still have to use food stamps.
The federal government has no right to tell our citizens how they should behave concerning such personal and private matters. As long as what one citizen chooses is not going to negatively impact the lives of her neighbors, nobody has a right to make his/her decisions for her.
Women do not plan on going back to the forties and fifties where unwanted pregnancies were aborted in back alleys with dirty coat hangers. They will not go back to an age where parents forced their daughters to give up their children to adoption. You have no right to tell a woman she has to see a pregnancy to the end so that someone else can rear the child. She should not have the health risks, the shortened energy, the financial and physical expense because of a mistake or failed birth control. Most especially, no man on earth has a right to tell a woman she has to have a baby she does not want. And no baby should have to enter this world to a parent who does not want it. When men start carrying the kids, then they can decide.
Over and over, power hungry individuals reach out their tentacles in an attempt to control everything and everyone within their vision. Greed for power over others is their main sin. How dare they accuse another of sin before they cast the sin from their own lives.
And no man who likens a U. S. citizen to the Nazis of World War II should ever have the right to hold the highest office in this land. Whatever are you thinking? It certainly cost you any chance you ever had at getting my vote.
This issue is not just an abortion issue. It is about who gets to be in charge of our lives and our choices. Get it yet? Duh!!!
First, I've not had a lot of exposure to Mr. Huckabee, but up until this time, I've always been rather fond of him.
Second, I've no idea whether his figures are correct and don't intend to research it. Fifty-five million?
Third, find a new platform! I just read and heard today that Republican women are taking a stand against the Republican position on abortion. I don't know why Americans persist in telling each other what to do. It is an invasion of privacy, none of your business and extremely archaic. It's almost as radical as Muslim extremists who stone each other for adultery.
Let me go on record once more! I have never had an unwanted pregnancy. I have never had an abortion. I don't believe that any woman in my family has ever had one. I know for a fact that we would welcome any children that God gifted to us and be grateful for them. I am not a proponent of abortion, per se. I am a proponent of a woman's - a couple's -- right to choose!
You do not have the right to decide whether the Catholic couple next door to you has to keep the tenth or twelfth baby just because the rhythm method failed them. You do not have the right to tell the Baptist couple next door that they have to feed an extra mouth when they already work four jobs between them and still have to use food stamps.
The federal government has no right to tell our citizens how they should behave concerning such personal and private matters. As long as what one citizen chooses is not going to negatively impact the lives of her neighbors, nobody has a right to make his/her decisions for her.
Women do not plan on going back to the forties and fifties where unwanted pregnancies were aborted in back alleys with dirty coat hangers. They will not go back to an age where parents forced their daughters to give up their children to adoption. You have no right to tell a woman she has to see a pregnancy to the end so that someone else can rear the child. She should not have the health risks, the shortened energy, the financial and physical expense because of a mistake or failed birth control. Most especially, no man on earth has a right to tell a woman she has to have a baby she does not want. And no baby should have to enter this world to a parent who does not want it. When men start carrying the kids, then they can decide.
Over and over, power hungry individuals reach out their tentacles in an attempt to control everything and everyone within their vision. Greed for power over others is their main sin. How dare they accuse another of sin before they cast the sin from their own lives.
And no man who likens a U. S. citizen to the Nazis of World War II should ever have the right to hold the highest office in this land. Whatever are you thinking? It certainly cost you any chance you ever had at getting my vote.
This issue is not just an abortion issue. It is about who gets to be in charge of our lives and our choices. Get it yet? Duh!!!
Do Us All A Favor
In the early eighties while I was working as a school psychologist, a coworker was coughing, spewing and sneezing all over us as well as complaining that she didn't really feel like being at work. I agreed she couldn't possibly and that she should have stayed at home that day. Her response? "I don't want to use my sick days for being sick." I had no response for someone that stupid.
From elementary school right on up to the present, we are all exposed to sick people who bring their germs to school and work. Even last weekend while shopping for a few food items, the cashier was hacking all over us and complaining what a horrible cold she had. We could tell.
My own mother made me go to high school one day with a fever and aches and pains. After all, the school had sent home a note stating the parents had to make sure we got there because they were administering an important test. The school apparently derived an intelligence quotient, as well as achievement results from the test. Got any idea how valid those test results were?
What is it that is wrong with people? We have the employers with no tolerance for absences. There are the employees who feel that they must never miss a day of work. There are the schools who threaten penalties for poor attendance and the illnesses that are spread more thoroughly and rapidly because of anal retentive people who must always obey the rules -- even the most idiotic ones.
There "oughta" be a law folks, that penalizes everyone who goes or sends their children out into the world while sick. There ought to at least be a sense of moral correctness pertaining to exposing others to our germs.
Next time you are ill, how about stirring up some chicken soup, turning on a movie and taking your meds in the comfort of your own homes instead of contaminating the rest of your community? We would all thank you in the long run.
From elementary school right on up to the present, we are all exposed to sick people who bring their germs to school and work. Even last weekend while shopping for a few food items, the cashier was hacking all over us and complaining what a horrible cold she had. We could tell.
My own mother made me go to high school one day with a fever and aches and pains. After all, the school had sent home a note stating the parents had to make sure we got there because they were administering an important test. The school apparently derived an intelligence quotient, as well as achievement results from the test. Got any idea how valid those test results were?
What is it that is wrong with people? We have the employers with no tolerance for absences. There are the employees who feel that they must never miss a day of work. There are the schools who threaten penalties for poor attendance and the illnesses that are spread more thoroughly and rapidly because of anal retentive people who must always obey the rules -- even the most idiotic ones.
There "oughta" be a law folks, that penalizes everyone who goes or sends their children out into the world while sick. There ought to at least be a sense of moral correctness pertaining to exposing others to our germs.
Next time you are ill, how about stirring up some chicken soup, turning on a movie and taking your meds in the comfort of your own homes instead of contaminating the rest of your community? We would all thank you in the long run.
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