Archive for November 30, 2015

Planned Parenthood/Targeted Death

This whole attack on Planned Parenthood has me in a quandary.  Personally, I don’t like abortions.  I would very much like, in this imperfect world, to see abortions a thing of the past.  However, I question the logic of the actions of some people who share my feelings.

How can you claim to want to save lives, then take lives (physically and/or emotionally) by bombing, shooting up, or setting fire to Planned Parenthood clinics?  How can you destroy the lives of medical staff who have nothing to do with abortions as they serve poorer women’s basic health needs (e.g., exams and mammograms)?  Without health care, these women are in danger of sickness and death.  For that matter, how can you endanger the lives of the very unborn babies you’re trying to save?  You never know for sure if a pregnant woman is present, not for an abortion but for prenatal care that she couldn’t afford to get elsewhere?  How much control do you have over the bomb fragments and debris or the bullets you shoot off–enough to be sure a person just walking past the facility or police officer  doing his or her job isn’t maimed or killed?

I just don’t get how those lives are any less innocent or worthwhile than the unborn life you want to save by violently attacking an entire clinic.  Isn’t all life sacred?  It should be.

 

 

Do You Waste Food in These Ways?

According to the USDA, each year we Americans throw away more than 30% of our groceries, which adds up to about $162 billion worth of food.  Much of that food is tossed out during the holidays, beginning with Thanksgiving.

We simply do it without thinking.

The article “7 Most Shameful Ways You Waste Food During the Holidays–and How to Cut it Out” points out habits all of us fall into and suggests ways to avoid them.

 

Ongoing Thanksgiving

Usually on Thursdays I offer you a short quote (a “Thursday Thought”).  But I took yesterday off to enjoy Thanksgiving with my family.  The gathering of our small family brought joy to my heart, and that joy brought even more gratitude.  So today I pass on to you a little of what I am thankful for.

Happy Thanksgiving YEAR!

 

 

Gobbling Up a Pardon

President Nixon invented the pardon–at least for Thanksgiving turkeys.  In the midst of controversy about pardoning people involved in the Iran-Contra scandal, he joked about granting a pardon for that year’s turkey that was slated to be sent to the petting zoo instead of the dinner table.  And the term “pardon” stuck.

The whole tradition has an interesting history.  Read about it at “Why Presidents Pardon Turkeys–a History.”  As you gobble up the historical facts, remember this: they don’t have any calories, as opposed to the 4000 or so you may have consumed yesterday.

 

Help for Job-Seekers

You’re on your way!  Several companies liked your resume enough to ask you in for an interview.  You’ve picked out your businesslike outfit to wear, gotten a haircut, shaved extra carefully, reviewed what you said in your resume, and thought about the highlights of your work life so far and your personal strengths that you want to get across.

Now, review what you should NOT say during that interview.

Click on “8 Things to Never Tell an Interviewer — Even If They’re True” to make sure you don’t say any of these job-prospect killing statements.

 

 

Organic, Wholesome Food

There are no regulations defining organic or wholesome or many other terms you’ll find on packaging.  To make sure your food is environmentally responsible, find out what trustworthy labelers like the USDA and Food Alliance have to say, or shop at your local farmers’ market.

Leaf 6

[For more easy, money-saving, earth-friendly tips, download a FREE copy of Green Riches: Help the Earth & Your Budget. Go to www.Smashwords.com/books/view/7000 or your favorite e-book seller and download to your computer or e-book device. Totally free, with no strings attached.]

Fence out those Immigrants!

I live in California, a state that has a large population of immigrants coming in illegally.  I should, I suppose, jump on the bandwagon of the Presidential candidates who insist on building a fence to keep them out.  It’s expensive, they all agree, but worth it, say some, or will be paid for by Mexico, claims one.

I don’t understand.  Aren’t those candidates aware that many people come in through Canada, too?  Or overstay their visa or HB work permits?  What about them?  A fence won’t help.  Also, haven’t they seen the statistics that show that  2009-2014 more Mexican immigrants have been choosing, on their own, to return to their families in Mexico than have come into the U.S.?  In addition, those reports show that the theory that they’ve been returning because of our bad economy is false–it has always been better economically here than where they came from.

Come on, candidates, make that bandwagon actually count for something–like plans to solve poverty, under-education, discrimination, bigotry, and violence in our nation.

 

 

Community and Crime

Maybe it’s true that “it takes a village.”  In today’s Thursday Thought quote we read about the importance of community.

“Crime goes up when the sense of community goes down. People feel disconnected.”  —  Steven Stosny, compassionpower.com.

 

 

Community and Crime

Maybe it’s true that “it takes a village.”  In today’s Thursday Thought quote we read about the importance of community.

“Crime goes up when the sense of community goes down. People feel disconnected.”  —  Steven Stosny

 

 

Fun Memory for Older People

I don’t understand half of what teenagers say today.  On the other hand, each generation has its own language, and this, too, shall pass.  Here’s a fun look back of when some of us were young.  [Thanks to Jim Knudsen for sending this to me.]

“I hope you are Hunky Dory …,” by Richard Lederer

About a month ago, I illuminated some old expressions that have become obsolete because of the inexorable march of technology. These phrases included “Don’t touch that dial,” “Carbon copy,” “You sound like a broken record” and “Hung out to dry.” A bevy of readers have asked me to shine light on more faded words and expressions, and I am happy to oblige:

Back in the olden days we had a lot of moxie. We’d put on our best bib and tucker and straighten up and fly right. Hubba-hubba! We’d cut a rug in some juke joint and then go smooching and spooning and billing and cooing and pitching woo in hot rods and jalopies in some lovers’ lane.

Heavens to Betsy! Gee whillikers! Jumpin’ Jehoshaphat! Holy moley! We were in like Flynn and living the life of Riley, and even a regular guy couldn’t accuse us of being a knucklehead, a nincompoop or a pill. Not for all the tea in China !

Back in the olden days, life used to be swell, but when’s the last time anything was swell? Swell has gone the way of beehives, pageboys and the D.A.; of spats, knickers, fedoras, poodle skirts, saddle shoes and pedal pushers. Oh, my aching back. Kilroy was here, but he isn’t anymore.

Like Washington Irving’s Rip Van Winkle and Kurt Vonnegut’s Billy Pilgrim, we have become unstuck in time. We wake up from what surely has been just a short nap, and before we can say, “I’ll be a monkey’s uncle!” or “This is a fine kettle of fish!” we discover that the words we grew up with, the words that seemed omnipresent as oxygen, have vanished with scarcely a notice from our tongues and our pens and our keyboards.

Poof, poof, poof go the words of our youth, the words we’ve left behind. We blink, and they’re gone, evanesced from the landscape and wordscape of our perception, like Mickey Mouse wristwatches, hula hoops, skate keys, candy cigarettes, little wax bottles of colored sugar water and an organ grinder’s monkey.

Where have all those phrases gone? Long time passing. Where have all those phrases gone? Long time ago: Pshaw. The milkman did it. Think about the starving Armenians. Bigger than a bread box. Banned in Boston . The very idea! It’s your nickel. Don’t forget to pull the chain. Knee high to a grasshopper. Turn-of-the-century. Iron curtain. Domino theory. Fail safe. Civil defense. Fiddlesticks! You look like the wreck of the Hesperus. Cooties. Going like sixty. I’ll see you in the funny papers. Don’t take any wooden nickels. Heavens to Murgatroyd! And awa-a-ay we go!

Oh, my stars and garters! It turns out there are more of these lost words and expressions than Carter had liver pills.  This can be disturbing stuff, this winking out of the words of our youth, these words that lodge in our heart’s deep core. But just as one never steps into the same river twice, one cannot step into the same language twice. Even as one enters, words are swept downstream into the past, forever making a different river.

We of a certain age have been blessed to live in changeful times. For a child each new word is like a shiny toy, a toy that has no age. We at the other end of the chronological arc have the advantage of remembering there are words that once did not exist and there were words that once strutted their hour upon the earthly stage and now are heard no more, except in our collective memory. It’s one of the greatest advantages of aging. We can have archaic and eat it, too.

See ‘ya later, alligator!