Yup You Really Can

Given the conflicts perpetrated in the name of Freedom for the People, we find it perplexing that, after all the energies and deaths sacrificed over the centuries in the pursuit this ideal, those societies enjoying the benefits of its acquisition can be so cavalier about its upkeep. We found the following tidbit in a diary. The diary entry is dated October, 18 2005.
Salutations,
Euroswydd, Reiki Clown and Mort.

Yup You Really Can

For all the people out there, the “little” people who because they don’t think their one vote counts don’t bother going to the polls on Election Day I have two words for you--Rosa Parks. Now I know that she wasn’t involved in gaining women the right to vote, all she did was quietly, firmly refuse to give her front of the bus seat up to a white passenger in Montgomery, Alabama on Dec. 1, 1955.
I realize that most of today’s younger people may not fully comprehend the significance of the action taken by this 42 year old seamstress. After all that was so long ago. Where’s the relevance to today’s issues? Fed up with the derogatory treatment meted out by those judging worth and character based solely on skin color, she took an unprecedented step or seat, if you will. She chose to do something about the injustices being perpetrated against people of color instead of complaining but taking no action to prevent or terminate it.
This diminutive woman-she was 5”1” tall-who one of the “little” people, had no name recognition, no opulence, no political or business ties of note, none of the qualities deemed necessary to be capable of bringing about massive societal change. No encompassing influential capacity whatsoever by the standards of those who complaining bitterly about this and that, continue to rail against their perceived impotence to facilitate change.
As history has shown a very ‘ordinary’ woman by quietly declaring herself worthy of humane treatment and unwilling to live a life ruled by fear brought about a social revolution and in so doing showed the power that one determined person, unwilling to put up with an injustice, can wield. Her act caused public attention to be aroused, indignation to flourish and more and more people to actively protest the heinous treatment they and their fellow human beings were undergoing. She started the ball rolling and while it still needs to continue rolling there have been many positive changes since that day in 1955.
How you ask does this relate to a single vote being cast? Think of it this way…if one ordinary person can start a social revolution why can’t a single vote change the course of history? Whether that one vote becomes part of a landslide or the deciding vote in an election, that one vote is your active voice declaring your message of choice. It’s your way of sitting on the front of the bus and refusing to budge, no one can take the power of your vote away from you unless, by not exercising it, you allow them to.

New and Improved?

We thought it would be interesting and informative to dwell on the reactions of those general citizens as, regaled with an ever increasing bedazzlement of new and presumably-if one were to believe what all the media hype and advertising said-necessary forms of digitalized processing and processors, they incorporated them into their lives. Below is an article on just that subject...we hope you find it informative and enjoyable.
Euroswydd, Reiki Clown and Mort

Those who’ve known me from the past-and I will allow the possibility of those in the present-might be less than convinced at the voracity of what I’m about to say, but it’s true nonetheless. I really have no issue with the idea of progress, improvements or the like.
Without question improvements-actual ones-are wonderful and I embrace them. It’s nice to toss-well, perhaps not toss vigorously-dirty dishes into the dishwasher and let it do the work. It’s also quite satisfying to put dirty clothes in the washing machine and let it do all that rock pounding once deemed necessary in order to get sparkling, sanitized body wear.
I live in a rural area that doesn’t offer satellite internet access to its inhabitants, they haven’t heard of Broadband and the telephone lines are pre-historic grade. In other words these lines are barely capable of handling what they were originally intended to do—transporting the spoken word—much less today’s sophisticated computer signals.
Sitting and waiting, waiting, waiting…waiting…OK you get the idea, for my desired web site to appear—I believe the technical jargon is uploading but I’m just going to hold on to my antiquated descriptive terms if you don’t mind. They’re kind of like comfort food when you’re not feeling well. Anyway there’s nothing coming up nor is there any appreciable loading apparent on my monitor. I rue the day that I discovered how satisfying having a cable connection can be.
My father, spectacularly uninterested in material possessions for material possession ownership’s sake, unless there was a personal emotional attachment or the material possession in question served a very useful purpose, nevertheless enjoyed his, “gadgets”. As time passed and we moved from the Industrial Revolution into the Digital Age (Age of Digital?) those “gadgets” became increasingly intriguing to him.
Several years ago he informed me, with a wry chuckle-always present when discussing an ironic action of his-that for the first time in his life he’d allowed a telemarketer to persuade him to try a product. One of the first people to own a home computer (yes, a “gadget”) my father was intrigued with the salesman’s pitch guaranteeing speedier internet service if he would include internet access along with his cable TV hookup. My father never used dial-up again.
As a result of exposure to the speed of this service as well as other more modern phone line services I am now embroiled in a constant state of frustration, held prisoner by a system that delivers a less than mediocre performance. The irony of it all is that before it wasn’t imperative that I have reliable internet access, my economic stability didn’t depend on it. Now it does.
But what if I’d never known that there could be something better, speed and oh yes, ultimately more expensive. I’d most likely be happily accepting of my lot and not know what I was missing. I do know that I would be missing a lot of frustration, high blood pressure moments and the animals wouldn’t be vacating the room with the frequency they do now as they hear rumblings begin to emit from my mouth as I rise from the seat facing that recalcitrant monitor.
In addition to all the new stuff, there are changes that have been perpetrated on items that have been around for some time. Take cordless phones for instance. Now that our phones have been streamlined and liberated we can move freely about the house or yard, able to talk incessantly, always be in touch, as we take care of daily necessities.
Just think of the evolutionary possibilities, a union between cordless and cell phones could eventually result in a sixth digit---on one hand only of course—or a protruding bulge in the shape of a phone becoming the normal shape of—only one—human ear. But forgive me I digress.
Being able to carry on conversations no matter where we are or what we are doing is supposed to bring us together—so what is this about an increase in dysfunctional families and high divorce rates?—and make our lives easier and more relaxing. Have none of these people dealt with cell phone service that doesn’t?
But wait I’m getting a glimmer of an idea, I think I’ve got it! It’s not that we’ll have more free time but that we’ll be better able to get the ever increasing amount of necessary “things” done!
How clever.
P.S.
Food for Thought regarding the concept of ease of work load: Which requires more upkeep the electronics with their demands to be upgraded, recharged, downloaded, accessed, debugged, accessorized (with their own unique brand so they will be able to interfaced), and when retired brought to the toxic area of the Recycling area, or pets with their need to be fed, debugged, accessorized, interfaced with, and cleaned up after?

Weather 'tis Nobler?

I have had a hard time going through the material describing the Natural Calamities that decimated the coastal and inland regions of four states, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas the late summer of 2005. Studying all the worlds and cultures that I have I thought I’d seen or heard it all, but nothing compares to the ineptitude and self-aggrandizing actions taken by the President of the United States before, during and after the Hurricanes made landfall. The unique comparison in this piece looks at it all from a different perspective.

Weather ‘tis Nobler?
The wind moves through the yard bringing with it a feeling of relief after so many months of still, humid laden air-it was almost as if the air too moisture had been too heavy to be moved anywhere. Temperatures still descend no lower than the mid-seventies mellowed by the darkness of night but they no longer reach into the upper nineties as they did for so long. It’s ‘cooler’ now…high’s approach but don’t cross over the 90 degree mark. Humidity and dew point measure in double digits and that chance for occasional showers so fondly referred to by forecasters, certainly present themselves with frequency.
Using such terms as chance of, occasional, spotty and widespread seem to be safety net phrases taught to prospective meteorologists bent on pursuing a career that will allow them to make predictions that will impact peoples’ daily lives but for which they will suffer no greater repercussions if they are in error, or mess up in some way than a few words of chastisement and perhaps for the younger and less hardened a wee bit of embarrassment. Remorse need not enter the picture, after all it’s only the weather…not something as important as people’s lives, the balanced budget of an entire nation, or the compassionate (we won’t mention intellectual) credibility before the entire world. Yet the alarming similarity in modus operendi as displayed by the President of the United States in the performing of his job and that of the meteorologists doing theirs is cataclysmically undeniable.
Those brave people-for they do go before an audience on a daily basis and based on computer models and their experience make a guess about weather trends-rarely give an entirely accurate forecast. I’d like to have a bit more confidence in my President, that he will be able to foresee and take appropriate action on whatever issues lie ahead for his constituents, than I do in the weather forecasters.
I want to interject at this point that I am a firm believer in meteorologists, they do an excellent job and can’t be more accurate than they are since they are guessing what a weather system will do over time. The weather system may have other plans, hence the margin of error implicit in every forecast. Such a margin is unavoidable and expected when dealing with weather it is not acceptable when coming from the country’s leader. Most weather men/women involve themselves in the community where they live and work spending their free time giving of themselves in many different capacities to going into schools and educating to charity events. HHmmm and the President….
Suffering through months of daily temperatures flirting with the century mark, high humidity and no breezes is not within the weather forecasters power to control, they bring us the information and being human we vent our spleen at the uncomfortable situation at them because they are there. They are not elected officials whose first responsibilities are to their constituents and were put in office to act in leadership capacities to take care of the needs and requirements of those who gave them their jobs. The troops are in needlessly in Iraq where over five BILLION dollars goes every day to further a cause that is none of our business, while here at home citizens of the United States suffer from deprivation and danger wondering how come they don’t have priority. Should they announce the existence of weapons of mass destruction? Perhaps plan and leak out a mock terrorist attack? Will such attention grabbing tidbits of fiction perhaps cause a shift in the money flow and redirect it towards a more suitable purpose?
Nobler has a variety of definitions which for the most part are variations on a single theme. One of them mentions having or showing qualities of high moral character. The meteorologist or the President…which is nobler.

Presidential Follies

Presidential Follies
Various incongruities become obvious when viewing the reactions of the administration to the natural storm calamities which decimated the Gulf Coast regions of the United States during late summer of 2005. Singularly unreactive despite ample warning the President further exacerbated the already untenable situation with his unconscionable all but ignoring of the situation. Producing worldwide derision not to mention a maelstrom of negative reaction emanating from his constituents he attempted to regain some of his popularity by making promises of economic support to be made available not only to the inhabitants of New Orleans but to those victims living in Mississippi and Alabama as well. As he should. The next issue brought to the public’s attention became the ‘how on earth are we going to pay for this’ issue. Pulling out of a war that never should have been broached was apparently not an option while extracting funds from vital social services here in this country was. Cuts in funding to health and educational programs featured prominently on of the list of those issues deemed expendable. The curtailing of more roads that would accommodate and encompass more gas consuming vehicles seems a more logical candidate for belt tightening. Gas prices not withstanding it should have been glaringly obvious to even the most mentally challenged that continued reliance on fossil fuels to move the country’s goods and people about needed to be rethought and redirected. Perhaps instead of, as the esteemed Senator from Arizona suggested, revamping the Medicare system that would start providing more to those in need as of December by staying those funds and not providing until a complete revamping of an admittedly faulty system could be facilitated-and how long will that take at the current rate that it takes to get anything through committee and voted upon? But perhaps looking into something such as the money appropriated for the restructuring and enlarging of the roads in this country and going about That in a different more equitable fashion. Survival wasn’t crucial entwined to paved infrastructure as it was to being able to access food and medicine. By holding of building further roadways and examining the situation further utilizing those capable of critical forethought perhaps the promotion of alternative means of energy production and the avocation of using an expanded public transport system would have been advocated. While there were certainly many milking the social services system more legitimately depended on it for survival. Not so with such luxuries as more roads.But again the administration talks of performing an unconscionable act. There are many other ways of cutting costs without cutting it to those who truly need it. So how does it make sense to cut necessary programs to implement other albeit also necessary programs? One helps keep people alive and the other provides the means by which the cycle of dependency can be broken. What about this suggestion; keep what’s necessary for the general populace, the constituents and do some cutting in the administration, pork bellying and self-serving bill passages. Or would that fall under the NIMBY mentality?
Another quick thought, when an employee makes a catastrophic error on the job, one that would have comparably far reaching and detrimental effects such as the President’s lapse in judgment did, he or she at the very least receive a demotion, if not a pink slip. There are times when jail is the result. Just food for thought.