"The sweetness of a child can cause a tenderness to come in the hardest heart."
The wisdom of the Sequichie of the Cherokees
Let it be.
See the world as the child sees it.
Sunday, June 30, 2013
Saturday, June 29, 2013
The wisdom of the Cherokees (part 16)
"Gentleness has amazing
strength."
The wisdom of the Sequichie of the Cherokees
Oh yeah, I almost forgot: Speak softly.
If you're blustering, odds are you're
not leading, and you're probably not convincing anyone, either.
Friday, June 28, 2013
The wisdom of Leo Tolstoy (part 2)
"The two most powerful warriors
are patience and time."
Take your time, think about it.
Sometimes saying "I'm gonna
live longer than this problem will exist" can set up a good frame of reference
for you….
Try chewing each bite 100 times…..
I think if a fast food menu item weighs
more than your shoes, there's a good chance you shouldn't put it in your mouth.
You keep hearing
the bad news about obesity.
Here are three of the reasons for it:
At Kentucky Fried
Chicken, the 10-piece bag of Original
Recipe Chicken Bites -- 1,300 calories.
At McDonald's , the Big Breakfast with
syrup and margarine -- 1,350 calories.
At Wendy's, try Dave’s Hot ‘N Juicy, the 3/4 lb. triple patty with cheese -- 1,120
calories.
Roughly speaking, the USDA says the
average sedentary American in his or her 40s needs about 1,800 calories
(ladies) per day, or 2,300 calories (gents) per day.
And about 80% of Americans don't get the
minimum recommended exercise, so "sedentary" describes most folks.
So it's not too hard to figure out that
getting more than half of your daily recommended calories from one menu item at
your favorite fast food joint is an easy way keep the pounds on.
Mayor Bloomberg was on the right track
when he tried to outlaw the 128-ounce Big Super Mega Giant Gulp drinks….
I think if a menu item weighs more than
your shoes, there's a good chance you shouldn't put it in your mouth.
Wednesday, June 26, 2013
American Gothic: an update
No surprise here: American Latinos are
moving to the Midwest, looking for work and finding it. This new book tells all about it.
A
recent report from Experian Marketing
Services mentions that, right now, almost 25% of Americans
6-34 years old are Hispanic. And that percentage is growing.
Hispanic
folks are our neighbors.
Tuesday, June 25, 2013
Social networking: old as the hills
A piece in the June 23 Sunday New York Times Review section caught my eye, but it turned out to be superficial,
mostly a waste of time.
Tom Standage, the digital editor at
The Economist, unloaded some of the points he makes in his new book, Writing on the Wall: Social Media – The
First 2,000 Years.
I beg to suggest that social media as
we know them now just aren't that old.
I'm no Luddite, and I'm not an
early adopter of current social media, I have a Facebook page but only 11
Facebook friends and I'm not looking for more. I have a cell phone and I send a
text message now and then.
I happen to like social networking,
but I do it the old-fashioned way: face to face, with spoken words and facial
expressions and hand gestures. You know, like they did before the Great War….
Frankly, I don't think we've had
social media for the last 2,000 years. Standage used up his column inches in
the Times with three cheers for the English coffee houses which sprang up in
Oxford and London in the 1650s. I'm happy to agree that the gentlemen who patronized
the coffee houses were doing socializing and social networking, but a coffee house
is not a good example of social media.
I go so far as to suggest that each
and every aspect of the use of social media is not necessarily social networking,
at least not in the human biological sense. I go so far as to suggest that each
and every aspect of communication is not necessarily social networking.
Let's stop blandly and blindly labeling
all use of electronic media and iconic gear like iPads and iPhones as social networking.
For instance, posting a Facebook picture of your cat eating ice cream is not the
highest form of social networking.
I'd like to argue the point that personal
human contact is essential for social networking that has traditional meaning in
the context of the dynamic human communication that's been going on for a lot longer
than the last 2,000 years.
Monday, June 24, 2013
Don't give 'til it hurts.
"Don't give 'til
it hurts."
It seems like that's what wealthy Americans—let's say your average
wealthy Americans—tend to say to themselves when they haul out the checkbook to
do the charity thing.
The poorest Americans
are almost 3 times more generous than the wealthiest Americans in their donations
to charitable causes and organizations.
Here's an excerpt from a recent report on TheAtlantic.com:
"One of the
most surprising, and perhaps confounding, facts of charity in America is that
the people who can least afford to give are the ones who donate the greatest
percentage of their income. In 2011, the wealthiest Americans—those with
earnings in the top 20 percent—contributed on average 1.3 percent of
their income to charity. By comparison, Americans at the base of the income
pyramid—those in the bottom 20 percent—donated 3.2 percent of their
income. The relative generosity of lower-income Americans is accentuated by the
fact that, unlike middle-class and wealthy donors, most of them cannot take
advantage of the charitable tax deduction, because they do not itemize
deductions on their income-tax returns."
And the folks who write
the very biggest checks, the ones with six zeroes, generally aren't helping the
poor.
The Atlantic says:
"Last year, not one of the
top 50 individual charitable gifts went to a social-service organization
or to a charity that principally serves the poor and the dispossessed."
Everyone is entitled to be generous as much, or
as little, and how, he chooses. Absolutely.
But let's just be harshly candid: writing a big
check and putting your name on the new wing of the art museum isn't the moral equivalent
of feeding hungry orphans or buying books for poor kids or sponsoring a sports league
for disadvantaged youths.
Sunday, June 23, 2013
Guilty.
I'm reading my books as fast as I can.
Wish I could read two books at once,
one with each eye.
But, I'm not going to stop buying more.
No way.
Saturday, June 22, 2013
Memo to Congress: What?
Memo to Congress: What?
As in:
What are you thinking?
What are you doing?
What is stopping you from doing your
real job?
Members of both parties in both houses
are endlessly skewering each other and just about everybody else from President
Obama on down, focused on the politically-charged subjects of NSA "snooping,"
immigration and citizenship for immigrants, abortion, the hopelessly boondoggled
special-interest nightmare loosely called
the "farm bill," you can add to the list….
What Congress isn't doing is working
on the two primary national concerns: boosting growth in our national economy and
helping to create jobs for millions of Americans who want to work.
I think more or less everybody knows
that economic growth and jobs are what's on the minds of Americans.
Too many people keep voting to re-elect
the pols who are playing their political games and pandering to special interests,
while the rest of us twist slowly in the wind….
Friday, June 21, 2013
The wisdom of Abraham Lincoln (part 8)
"The things I
want to know are in books;
my best friend is the man who'll get me a book I
ain't read."
Abraham
Lincoln (1809-1865)
16th President of the United States
Now, I ain't got any doubts that this
here is pure Lincoln, Old Abe weren't no stickler fer grammer when he was a young
man….
Books was a summat scant commoditee
then, in those parts where the Railsplitter was livin' in his early years.
So I ain't feeling like there's any
reason to think this is anythin' but the whole truth, as a youngish country lawyer
in Illinois might have spoken it.
So, you go on, do like me, do honor
to Mr. President Lincoln's memory, be a friend and give a friend a book.
Some of the things your friend wants
to know are in books.
Thursday, June 20, 2013
Enjoy yourself, you're going to live a while longer….
The Center for Disease Control estimates that average life expectancy of Americans has increased by more than 10 years in
the last two generations.
That's a stunning gain in longevity,
in less than a blink of an eye in geologic time. It's definitely a man-made phenomenon. It's all due to rapid, worldwide improvements
in health care, sanitation and nutrition.
The average American born in 1950 had
a life expectancy of about 68 years. Folks born in 2010 had a life expectancy of
almost 79 years—on average, they'll live a decade longer than their grandparents.
They're probably going to work longer
than their grandparents did.
And they're going to use a lot more
health care.
And, regrettably, they might save a
lot less for their retirement than Grandma and Gramps did.
This is a huge public policy issue….and
hardly anybody is talking about it.
Take care of the ones you love….
Be serious, be the Nurse, be gentle….
Tuesday, June 18, 2013
The wisdom of the Cherokees (part 15)
"We don't have to tell
everything we think…Subtlety makes someone else think, and that is more
important.
Our tendency is to think that no one understands
unless we spell
things out for them."
The wisdom of the Sequichie of the Cherokees
I try to avoid being the person who
has no unexpressed thoughts.
That's all I'll say.
Over to you.
Monday, June 17, 2013
Don't ask for a reading….
Hey look, stuff happens, right?, I mean,
who knew?, y'know?, everything was going along and then, suddenly, it was, like,
I don't know….
Sunday, June 16, 2013
The wisdom of Jonathan Safran Foer
"I worry that the closer the
world gets to our fingertips, the further it gets from our hearts."
American writer
Foer's opinion piece in the June 9
Sunday New York Times really struck some resonant chords for me. He riffed,
with feeling, on the theme "How Not To Be Alone." Indeed.
He pointed a finger at
"diminished substitutes" in our everyday communication with each
other: "Leaving a message on someone's machine is easier than having a
phone conversation—you can say what you need to say without a response; hard
news is easier to leave; it's easier to check in without becoming entangled. So
we began calling when we knew no one would pick up."
More: "Being attentive to
the needs of others might not be the point of life, but it is the work of life."
There are many needs and aspirations
that are the work of life, and your own may often take perfectly natural precedence
over those of others somewhere….
….but I embrace attention to the needs
of those I love and those around me, so I can share in their fulfillment and share
in the pleasures of their aspirations….that is good work….
Sweet dreams.
Just one of the ways to get visions
of sugar plums dancing in her head….
….or the lion, the witch and the wardrobe….
The camel bookmobile
Saturday, June 15, 2013
Sometimes you really need somebody….
Sometimes you really need somebody
to listen.
And sometimes you really need
somebody to be there for you.
Dogs aren't people.
But, in a pinch, it can be a little
hard to tell the difference.
Friday, June 14, 2013
We're cooking the planet (part 10)
Global climate change and planetary
warming are real and dangerous.
The folks who choose to disbelieve
are going to sweat just as much as the rest of us.
Mayor Bloomberg in New York City
just rolled out a $20 billion plan to "prepare for the impacts of a
changing climate," and that's just for starters:
“By mid-century, up to a quarter of all New York City’s
land area, where 800,000 residents live today, will be in the flood plain,” he
said, and “40 miles of our waterfront could see flooding on a regular basis
just during normal high tides.” We no longer have the luxury of ideological
debate, he said. “The bottom line is we can’t run the risk.”
Folks, we're cooking the planet.
The entirety of believable science says
so.
It's the only planet our
grandchildren are going to have to live on.
We need to do more, now, to mediate
the worsening effects of global climate change.
Thursday, June 13, 2013
We think Congress, well, y'know, sucks….
The Gallup polling organization
reports that public confidence in Congress has sunk to an all-time low: in the
latest annual survey, only 10% of Americans gave Congress a thumbs up.
This new low doesn't surprise me. Does it surprise you?
The surprise—the great mystery—is
that we keep re-electing the folks who are doing such a rotten job, and that so
many citizens don't even bother to vote to change the charade that passes for government
in
Washington. Way more than 90% of incumbents get re-elected time after time.
Do you think your Senators and Representative
are doing what's right for America and for Americans?
Think again.
[Reminder:
no polling organization in America is capable of reaching a true random sample
of persons for any survey, and all polling organizations "massage"
their data to "improve" the results, so all poll results should be
viewed as rough guesses about the truth.]
Wednesday, June 12, 2013
The wisdom of Groucho Marx
"I've
had a perfectly wonderful evening. But
this wasn't it."
A boy singer before he was a
comedian
Groucho claimed he was born in a
room above a butcher shop on 78th Street in New York. Like much of
his life, that may have been an exaggeration…
If you never had a chance to watch "You
Bet Your Life" when Groucho's show was on TV, here's your chance.
Groucho's celebrity persona allowed
him to say whatever he felt like saying, just about all the time, he could really
hit the nail on the head….
Tuesday, June 11, 2013
Save more for retirement
The Motley Fool carried a shocking report the other day: more than 40% of Americans aren't saving anything for their retirement.
If you're a youngish person still working,
there are two warning signs here for you.
If you're not already saving a whole
lot more than six bits a week for your retirement, start now—you might live a long
time after you stop working, you don't want to be poor.
If you're a youngish person still working,
start beating the political bushes for government action to require higher Social
Security tax payments from everyone who's working, because all those folks who aren't
voluntarily saving for their retirement are going to want some kind of help when
they do stop working.
Motley Fool notes that Americans are
living longer, and they're not working as long as they did only a generation or
two ago:
"The entire concept of retirement is unique to the
late-20th century. Before World War II, most Americans worked until they
died."
The widespread failure to put aside meaningful personal savings
for retirement is a ticking time bomb. It's going to explode in our lifetimes.
Monday, June 10, 2013
Fizzle? Don't mention it….
I love words. Can't get enough of 'em. Etymology
is a hobby for me.
So here's a lurker for you: "fizzle"
The editors of the good old Oxford English Dictionary—bless them and all their generations—took the trouble to figure out that "fizzle" originally meant what we now euphemistically describe as flatulence of the SBD variety.
That's "Silent But Deadly" for those of you who may not have spent too much time in the boys' bathroom in junior high….
As early as 1601, "fizzle" was used in a translation of Pliny's Natural History, in the sense of "to break wind without noise," as our relentlessly candid OED editors tell us.
Just sayin'……
Sunday, June 9, 2013
That thing about corporate profits and taxes….
American businesses should pay taxes
in America, regardless of their international hiding places for reported profits.
James Surowiecki at NewYorker.com recently
shed a little more light on the continuing muddle of half-truths that passes
for news reporting on U.S. business taxes. Y'all know about that top marginal
rate of 35%, right?
Well, here's the scoop, again, for
the zillionth time: more or less no American company pays a 35% tax rate,
except for the unfortunate owner here and there who never heard of
"lawyers."
In the news right now is the report
that after-tax corporate profits in the U.S. are a good deal higher than they
normally have been, and taxes are getting lower and lower. My buddy Jim says: "In 1951, corporations had to pay almost half of reported
profits in taxes. In 1965, they had to pay more than thirty per cent. Today,
they pay only around twenty per cent."
In fact, the
effective average U.S. corporate tax rate in 2011 was 12.1%, the lowest since World
War I—in other words, the lowest real rate in almost 100 years!
So, on
average, businesses are paying much less than half of the nominal business tax
rate. And, some, notoriously, like Apple Inc., pay hardly any tax on billions
of dollars of profits, much of it from foreign operations ("foreign,"
that's the euphemism for the places where many American jobs have gone).
In fact,
Surowiecki notes that a "a study of two hundred and sixty-two [S&P
multinational firms] found that, on average, they got forty-six per cent of
their earnings from abroad. This is a relatively new phenomenon. As late as
1990, foreign earnings accounted for only a small fraction of corporate profits
in the U.S. Today, they account for almost a third of corporate earnings, and
they’ve nearly tripled since 2000."
Seems to me that American
businesses with operations in the U.S. are using and consuming the domestic services
that we all pay for: roadways, water and sewer and electricity, airports, fire
and police protection, environmental cleanups, you can add to the list….and don't
forget the unfunded pension liabilities that many American corporations have foisted
off on the federal government, i.e. you and me.
Business taxes in America should be
based on revenues related to their physical operations in America, and the scope
of their impact on the environment and their consumption of goods and services.
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