Traveling in the wilderness
In business practices today the Road Less Traveled has become a wilderness. Our paths and patterns have been so disrupted that we have been forced to wander off our normal pathways.
It's scary, unfamiliar, and risky at its worst, but at its best, it stands you apart from the herd. You become a singular force that can work equally well as a lone striker, or as part of a cohesive unit.
Wisdom is gained by those who stray from a prescribed and well-worn path; wandering opens up new vistas, creates horizons of unseen challenges and opportunities, provides a different perspective from the normal routine, allowing clear and unimagined solutions to tasks thought heretofore to be impossible.
Allowing time and making the commitment to leave traditional pathways of success in search of new beginnings and endings creates an environment conducive to surprises of volcanic proportions. Pledge to see challenges in different perspectives; view the unseen forces of the future as your own personal security blanket, not as nebulous will ‘o the wisps that haunt your dreams.
Many workers go through life with eyes wide shut. Opportunities come readily to those who keep their eyes open and wits at the ready.
Change can be encouraged from the inside; true change must come from within.
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Thursday, May 28, 2009
How to change the unchangeable?
Despite what some folks claim, I do not possess one ounce of "exalted liberalness," I consider myself a civil rights liberal and a fiscal conservative: I want all programs for all deserving people but I don't want to pay for them.
The list of things I don't understand is huge ... and growing.
I've never understood why people in any single state have to pay for a Big Ditch fiasco in Boston or a subway system in Chicago?
I've never understood why taxpayers believe that "schools" were formed to ensure kiddies get to play sports. For example, many high schools spend more than $1 million annually on sports. The number of high schools with artificial turf football field in the $750.000 range is growing. Some high schools have huge fieldhouses with indoor half-football field and a mini-jumbotron.
I've never understood why government officials at any level (they can't at many states levels) think it's perfectly acceptable to run government at a deficit.
I've never understood why federal employees are not in the Social Security system.
I've never understood political correctness taken to the point it is today. My great-grandmother was an Indian, so I think the "Native American" title is a tad pretentious. I think the moniker "African-American" is dumber than a box of hair.
In my lifetime, those people who have a dark pigment to their skin and are citizens of the United States of America have been formally referred to as Negroes, blacks, Afro-Americans, African Americans, and "people of color." They may be some more titles but I've forgotten them. One of the two lead organizations that set themselves up to "promote" the black race is the NAACP -- the National Association of the Advancement of Colored People.
Confusing? Assuredly!
Back to labels: I want to dismantle the two-party system and have people run on ideas and principles, not on R and D labels. I want the Green Party candidates to stop trying to look like a member of something that would be called the "green party." For example, there are a few state officials across the country who are members of the Green Party. Most are certified whack jobs!
I don't care what they look like, whether or not they hug little hooter snails or bitter-tongued owls or whatever. But for the most part, Green Party-ers open their mouths and stupid, stupid statements come boiling out.
I want to abolish all "catch phrases" used in campaigns to incite redneckedness, liberal slobber or random emotions simply to get votes -- left-wing, right-wing, family values, believer in the Constitution, the American way of life, and on and on and on.
Any politician that says "I believe in family values" should be whipped with a graphite fly rod on the public square and have the durn thing filmed for showing on PBS. Politicians should be forced to get in front of real people and talk about what they believe in. To do that, campaign spending must be severely limited.
The sad thing about the possibility of changes at any level of government (except in the change-out of individual candidates), is that the politicians have to make the changes and they have no incentive to change laws that benefit themselves.
And the rant goes forth . . . .
The list of things I don't understand is huge ... and growing.
I've never understood why people in any single state have to pay for a Big Ditch fiasco in Boston or a subway system in Chicago?
I've never understood why taxpayers believe that "schools" were formed to ensure kiddies get to play sports. For example, many high schools spend more than $1 million annually on sports. The number of high schools with artificial turf football field in the $750.000 range is growing. Some high schools have huge fieldhouses with indoor half-football field and a mini-jumbotron.
I've never understood why government officials at any level (they can't at many states levels) think it's perfectly acceptable to run government at a deficit.
I've never understood why federal employees are not in the Social Security system.
I've never understood political correctness taken to the point it is today. My great-grandmother was an Indian, so I think the "Native American" title is a tad pretentious. I think the moniker "African-American" is dumber than a box of hair.
In my lifetime, those people who have a dark pigment to their skin and are citizens of the United States of America have been formally referred to as Negroes, blacks, Afro-Americans, African Americans, and "people of color." They may be some more titles but I've forgotten them. One of the two lead organizations that set themselves up to "promote" the black race is the NAACP -- the National Association of the Advancement of Colored People.
Confusing? Assuredly!
Back to labels: I want to dismantle the two-party system and have people run on ideas and principles, not on R and D labels. I want the Green Party candidates to stop trying to look like a member of something that would be called the "green party." For example, there are a few state officials across the country who are members of the Green Party. Most are certified whack jobs!
I don't care what they look like, whether or not they hug little hooter snails or bitter-tongued owls or whatever. But for the most part, Green Party-ers open their mouths and stupid, stupid statements come boiling out.
I want to abolish all "catch phrases" used in campaigns to incite redneckedness, liberal slobber or random emotions simply to get votes -- left-wing, right-wing, family values, believer in the Constitution, the American way of life, and on and on and on.
Any politician that says "I believe in family values" should be whipped with a graphite fly rod on the public square and have the durn thing filmed for showing on PBS. Politicians should be forced to get in front of real people and talk about what they believe in. To do that, campaign spending must be severely limited.
The sad thing about the possibility of changes at any level of government (except in the change-out of individual candidates), is that the politicians have to make the changes and they have no incentive to change laws that benefit themselves.
And the rant goes forth . . . .
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Living ... surviving
Measured blessings
But is there for the night a resting-place?
A roof for when the slow, dark hours begin?
Christina Georgina Rossetti
Ian had a hole in his heart, Charles instinctively knew. Like most orphans there was a missing piece that Ian – and others like him – were constantly trying to fill by different measures: Introverted determination, acute shyness, heightened sense of bravado – all offensive mechanisms while searching for a connection, a bond, with another human being. Even strangers were not excluded. It was not uncommon for a charge of St. Mary’s or the girls’ orphanage near the levee, slipping in and out of shadows, to follow strangers, to make up stories about how they were related. To many, that was better than the alternative: No family and no one to care whether they lived or died.
A vast majority of orphans had a common need: To find or claim missing family members. Many found comfort, at least at some point, by finding a relative to two, even if the person or persons existed only in their minds.
Charles, too, had a heart hole that was large. At times it seemed so big he would swear he could hear the wind blowing through it. The sound it made . . . dreary, soulful, low . . . seldom left him, even in sleep. And the mournful sound always hinted at the same unspoken questions.
Family? Why don’t I have a family?
Sister Bloody knew the hearts of most of her charges, and tried to compensate for what was missing in each. She was a tender mother figure to those that needed special attention. She played the role of ritualistic matriarch when called upon to do so. To others she was religious instructress, giving plausible options to what some youngsters believed to be unanswerable questions. To Charles she was more of a big sister or young aunt than a religious scion or mother figure.
His quietness troubled her, exactly why she could not fathom. She watched him as he approached everyday life at the orphanage with a methodical sameness – eyes on the goal, hands at the ready, back bent to the task at hand. Whatever she wanted done, he did. Not happily. Not grudgingly. He just did it. When she praised him (which was often), he would smile or nod, or both, his eyes fixed on her face, so she could see the glassy reflections of the scene before him.
Only when she scolded him, or when one of the sisters or brothers did so, did emotion show in his face. Hooded eyes. Furrowed brow. Thin lips crushed thinner still. Anger, perhaps? But she didn’t really believe that. Disappointment for letting others down, she decided. Her, the other nuns, or the brothers? she wondered. Hard way to go through life, she thought more than once.
She often marveled at the bond between Charles and Ian. Due to circumstances that placed the boys in similar life-scenarios – needy youths, authority-figure helpers, and older sibling role models – they had been inseparable for several years. At first, Ian detested the slight, quiet introvert with the wiry hair and funny eyes. The initial feeling was mutual. Charles thought Ian a bombastic, blow-hard who worked aggressively at being annoying, rude, and profane.
Over time – working hip-to-hip scrounging for scraps of food and usable items in the dank, dark city alleyways – without even realizing it, they began looking out for one another. Ian was street smart, wise to the whims and waves of the cobblestone pathways and dirt alleys that crisscrossed New Orleans; Charles was just plain smart, a reader, more studious, but much more naïve about the human heartbeat and bloodstream of the city.
He was always surprised about the human nature aspect of aberrant situations in which the two often found themselves. Ian reacted immediately to such situations; Charles liked to study on things for a bit before taking action.
It was more than a partnership, more even than a kinship. It was an existence born out of individual desires for survival . . . and to be needed. On some level. By someone.
Life at the orphanage was like a woodpecker’s tapping: Repetitive, with no apparent change in rhythm or purpose. For most of the older charges at St. Mary’s, each day was a mirror image of the one before: Get up by six o’clock, roll up a thin blanket-pallet, help the little ones any way that was needed, eat something – pieces of cold hoecakes, flour milk, stale bread, coffee boiled with old grounds for the older charges, water or watery milk for the younger ones – go to the school room to practice reading and penmanship, listen to monotonic recitations on every subject from French history to simple principles of mathematics by sleepy-eyed priests, and do chores assigned by the priests and nuns.
For the older orphans the time spent in the classroom was diminished, the number of chores escalated. “Teaching responsibility,” one grizzled brother intoned, after ordering Charles and Ian to remove the filled privy buckets, dump them in a nearby ditch, and give each a thorough washing before placing them again under the three irregular holes.
After chores, the charges went off scrounging, in pairs or organized packs.
For the most part, the priests at St. Mary’s – Brother Vincent, the director, and Brothers Basil, Theodule, De Sales, Aloysius, and Gonzaga – assumed the role of harsh taskmasters and stern, by-the-rote teachers. The boys quickly learned any coddling (or, simply, kind words) would come from the nuns. One, actually: Sister Bloody. Holding forth a stern demeanor and a foreboding attitude were not in her.
Ian had come to like Charles’ company because the slight, dark boy didn’t talk much. Talking was Ian’s forte, the one thing at which he excelled, despite his stammer, despite his disinterest in book-learning, or learning anything that didn’t have to do with minor adventure and survival.
Over time, Charles found a familial contentment in listening to his stammering friend talk about nothing and everything. But then, again, he seldom listened with a full ear as he was always watching his surroundings, listening for out-of-place noises, looking for opportunities to make survival more of a certainty.
As Charles walked, his eyes constantly flitted side to side, like a swamp panther harried by a passel of hounds. His peripheral vision was passable, but was limited by the wide-brimmed hat he had heard some refer to as a Messkin Gigolo. The hat was a rather fancy affair with short rear brim and longer brim in front. Six months earlier he had slipped it off the head of a dead man of undetermined heritage slumped in an alleyway. Charles circled the body and thought the man was probably a robbery victim or, perhaps, the end result of botched kidnapping by a crew of hard billys looking for seamen – willing or unwilling – to crew-out a whaling ship set for a voyage around the tip of South America and then head west across the Pacific Ocean.
The man had been beaten severely about the head. Charles took the hat without a single negative thought; he certainly didn’t consider himself a thief.
You can’t steal from a dead man.
That thought and others of a similar vein bounced around his head as he rescued the hat from under the man’s blood-encrusted head. Water from a spitting summer shower, a little saliva, and elbow grease removed much of the stains congealed in the crown and sweat band.
Even thought Ian constantly made fun of his odd-looking hat, Charles liked it. It kept the sun and rain out of his eyes; and few people had one like it. While the hat kept him from seeing the entire world around him, it also prevented the world from seeing details of his face, which was in a constant shadow.
It’s not that there was anything wrong with his face. It was, for lack of a better description, an ordinary face bordering on pleasant . . . serene even. Like most faces, it was a face of parts: Fleshy nose, a bit large for his small features; small ears, standing at attention at a forty-five-degree angle to his head; soft, brown eyes partially hidden beneath heavy lids; a straight mouth with thin lips; medium-brown hair hacked off short with a kitchen knife to hold lice at bay.
What most people saw first when they looked at him were his eyes. Highlighted as they were by a prominent forehead and cheekbones with abrupt angles, their color (light cocoa, like the underside of a well-washed brown flannel shirt) was emphasized by the subdued, outside teardrop eyelid folds; golden flecks of color radiating from the edges of the cornea. His natural dark complexion, wiry, unruly hair, high cheekbones that hinted of Basque or Indian influence, and, again, those distinctive eyes, caused people to stare. Those eyes. That dark coloring. The dominant cheekbones. More than one person immediately thought of him as a mixed-breed, a blending of races. French Cajun-Oriental-Negro? Negro-Caucasian-Indian? Mexican-Oriental-Caucasian? While the possibilities seemed endlessly suspect, the truth, which he did not know, was quite simple.
What he was or where he really came from, he didn’t know for sure. Charles, like many of the St. Mary’s charges, didn’t remember his parents or the two brothers a nun told him he was supposed to have had. He didn’t have a middle name, as far as he knew. It stressed him that he could not remember the names of his family, that when he tried to visit them in his dreams, most of the time their faces were blank slates. He was four when the dreaded Yellow Jack descended on the city like a swarm of viral locust. More than two thousand residents died from the distinctive smothering, choking, and agonizing death of the mosquito-borne disease in less than four months.
Sister Bloody had picked up a short, and quite unsensational, tale from a well-meaning neighbor woman who had delivered the mewling toddler to the orphanage. When Charles was eight and had started asking questions, the nun said his father was a doctor who came to this country a few years before Charles was born. He and his wife and his brothers died in a wave of the creeping sicknesses that hit the Crescent City every couple of years.
Although she did not know for certain, Sister Bloody felt sure that his family (like the French-born nuns and brothers at the orphanage) only knew that the “Port of New Orleans” was as close to living on French soil as you could get anywhere in the world.
Charles believed he was born several years after his family came to New Orleans. He was told he was four when he was dropped off at the orphanage but he thought he must have been younger.
At four, wouldn’t you remember the names of your parents and brothers?
He tried to remember his family, to recall a name, any detail of his life before St. Mary’s. He thought he could remember his father laughing and wearing a funny little hat. He thought he remembered two brothers, one bigger than the other.
Memories of his mother were different. Occasional vivid visions of his mother holding him tight, nuzzling his neck, swarmed his thoughts. She had brown hair, like his own, with a face of angles and light. Small eyes, assuredly, also like his, and clean hair as thick and unruly, tied up in a swirling topknot. In dreams and stray thoughts, she was called Josephine; her smile was small, yet captivating; flickering candlelight danced in her eyes.
In his mind, she was always looking kindly at him, smiling.
Always.
But is there for the night a resting-place?
A roof for when the slow, dark hours begin?
Christina Georgina Rossetti
Ian had a hole in his heart, Charles instinctively knew. Like most orphans there was a missing piece that Ian – and others like him – were constantly trying to fill by different measures: Introverted determination, acute shyness, heightened sense of bravado – all offensive mechanisms while searching for a connection, a bond, with another human being. Even strangers were not excluded. It was not uncommon for a charge of St. Mary’s or the girls’ orphanage near the levee, slipping in and out of shadows, to follow strangers, to make up stories about how they were related. To many, that was better than the alternative: No family and no one to care whether they lived or died.
A vast majority of orphans had a common need: To find or claim missing family members. Many found comfort, at least at some point, by finding a relative to two, even if the person or persons existed only in their minds.
Charles, too, had a heart hole that was large. At times it seemed so big he would swear he could hear the wind blowing through it. The sound it made . . . dreary, soulful, low . . . seldom left him, even in sleep. And the mournful sound always hinted at the same unspoken questions.
Family? Why don’t I have a family?
Sister Bloody knew the hearts of most of her charges, and tried to compensate for what was missing in each. She was a tender mother figure to those that needed special attention. She played the role of ritualistic matriarch when called upon to do so. To others she was religious instructress, giving plausible options to what some youngsters believed to be unanswerable questions. To Charles she was more of a big sister or young aunt than a religious scion or mother figure.
His quietness troubled her, exactly why she could not fathom. She watched him as he approached everyday life at the orphanage with a methodical sameness – eyes on the goal, hands at the ready, back bent to the task at hand. Whatever she wanted done, he did. Not happily. Not grudgingly. He just did it. When she praised him (which was often), he would smile or nod, or both, his eyes fixed on her face, so she could see the glassy reflections of the scene before him.
Only when she scolded him, or when one of the sisters or brothers did so, did emotion show in his face. Hooded eyes. Furrowed brow. Thin lips crushed thinner still. Anger, perhaps? But she didn’t really believe that. Disappointment for letting others down, she decided. Her, the other nuns, or the brothers? she wondered. Hard way to go through life, she thought more than once.
She often marveled at the bond between Charles and Ian. Due to circumstances that placed the boys in similar life-scenarios – needy youths, authority-figure helpers, and older sibling role models – they had been inseparable for several years. At first, Ian detested the slight, quiet introvert with the wiry hair and funny eyes. The initial feeling was mutual. Charles thought Ian a bombastic, blow-hard who worked aggressively at being annoying, rude, and profane.
Over time – working hip-to-hip scrounging for scraps of food and usable items in the dank, dark city alleyways – without even realizing it, they began looking out for one another. Ian was street smart, wise to the whims and waves of the cobblestone pathways and dirt alleys that crisscrossed New Orleans; Charles was just plain smart, a reader, more studious, but much more naïve about the human heartbeat and bloodstream of the city.
He was always surprised about the human nature aspect of aberrant situations in which the two often found themselves. Ian reacted immediately to such situations; Charles liked to study on things for a bit before taking action.
It was more than a partnership, more even than a kinship. It was an existence born out of individual desires for survival . . . and to be needed. On some level. By someone.
Life at the orphanage was like a woodpecker’s tapping: Repetitive, with no apparent change in rhythm or purpose. For most of the older charges at St. Mary’s, each day was a mirror image of the one before: Get up by six o’clock, roll up a thin blanket-pallet, help the little ones any way that was needed, eat something – pieces of cold hoecakes, flour milk, stale bread, coffee boiled with old grounds for the older charges, water or watery milk for the younger ones – go to the school room to practice reading and penmanship, listen to monotonic recitations on every subject from French history to simple principles of mathematics by sleepy-eyed priests, and do chores assigned by the priests and nuns.
For the older orphans the time spent in the classroom was diminished, the number of chores escalated. “Teaching responsibility,” one grizzled brother intoned, after ordering Charles and Ian to remove the filled privy buckets, dump them in a nearby ditch, and give each a thorough washing before placing them again under the three irregular holes.
After chores, the charges went off scrounging, in pairs or organized packs.
For the most part, the priests at St. Mary’s – Brother Vincent, the director, and Brothers Basil, Theodule, De Sales, Aloysius, and Gonzaga – assumed the role of harsh taskmasters and stern, by-the-rote teachers. The boys quickly learned any coddling (or, simply, kind words) would come from the nuns. One, actually: Sister Bloody. Holding forth a stern demeanor and a foreboding attitude were not in her.
Ian had come to like Charles’ company because the slight, dark boy didn’t talk much. Talking was Ian’s forte, the one thing at which he excelled, despite his stammer, despite his disinterest in book-learning, or learning anything that didn’t have to do with minor adventure and survival.
Over time, Charles found a familial contentment in listening to his stammering friend talk about nothing and everything. But then, again, he seldom listened with a full ear as he was always watching his surroundings, listening for out-of-place noises, looking for opportunities to make survival more of a certainty.
As Charles walked, his eyes constantly flitted side to side, like a swamp panther harried by a passel of hounds. His peripheral vision was passable, but was limited by the wide-brimmed hat he had heard some refer to as a Messkin Gigolo. The hat was a rather fancy affair with short rear brim and longer brim in front. Six months earlier he had slipped it off the head of a dead man of undetermined heritage slumped in an alleyway. Charles circled the body and thought the man was probably a robbery victim or, perhaps, the end result of botched kidnapping by a crew of hard billys looking for seamen – willing or unwilling – to crew-out a whaling ship set for a voyage around the tip of South America and then head west across the Pacific Ocean.
The man had been beaten severely about the head. Charles took the hat without a single negative thought; he certainly didn’t consider himself a thief.
You can’t steal from a dead man.
That thought and others of a similar vein bounced around his head as he rescued the hat from under the man’s blood-encrusted head. Water from a spitting summer shower, a little saliva, and elbow grease removed much of the stains congealed in the crown and sweat band.
Even thought Ian constantly made fun of his odd-looking hat, Charles liked it. It kept the sun and rain out of his eyes; and few people had one like it. While the hat kept him from seeing the entire world around him, it also prevented the world from seeing details of his face, which was in a constant shadow.
It’s not that there was anything wrong with his face. It was, for lack of a better description, an ordinary face bordering on pleasant . . . serene even. Like most faces, it was a face of parts: Fleshy nose, a bit large for his small features; small ears, standing at attention at a forty-five-degree angle to his head; soft, brown eyes partially hidden beneath heavy lids; a straight mouth with thin lips; medium-brown hair hacked off short with a kitchen knife to hold lice at bay.
What most people saw first when they looked at him were his eyes. Highlighted as they were by a prominent forehead and cheekbones with abrupt angles, their color (light cocoa, like the underside of a well-washed brown flannel shirt) was emphasized by the subdued, outside teardrop eyelid folds; golden flecks of color radiating from the edges of the cornea. His natural dark complexion, wiry, unruly hair, high cheekbones that hinted of Basque or Indian influence, and, again, those distinctive eyes, caused people to stare. Those eyes. That dark coloring. The dominant cheekbones. More than one person immediately thought of him as a mixed-breed, a blending of races. French Cajun-Oriental-Negro? Negro-Caucasian-Indian? Mexican-Oriental-Caucasian? While the possibilities seemed endlessly suspect, the truth, which he did not know, was quite simple.
What he was or where he really came from, he didn’t know for sure. Charles, like many of the St. Mary’s charges, didn’t remember his parents or the two brothers a nun told him he was supposed to have had. He didn’t have a middle name, as far as he knew. It stressed him that he could not remember the names of his family, that when he tried to visit them in his dreams, most of the time their faces were blank slates. He was four when the dreaded Yellow Jack descended on the city like a swarm of viral locust. More than two thousand residents died from the distinctive smothering, choking, and agonizing death of the mosquito-borne disease in less than four months.
Sister Bloody had picked up a short, and quite unsensational, tale from a well-meaning neighbor woman who had delivered the mewling toddler to the orphanage. When Charles was eight and had started asking questions, the nun said his father was a doctor who came to this country a few years before Charles was born. He and his wife and his brothers died in a wave of the creeping sicknesses that hit the Crescent City every couple of years.
Although she did not know for certain, Sister Bloody felt sure that his family (like the French-born nuns and brothers at the orphanage) only knew that the “Port of New Orleans” was as close to living on French soil as you could get anywhere in the world.
Charles believed he was born several years after his family came to New Orleans. He was told he was four when he was dropped off at the orphanage but he thought he must have been younger.
At four, wouldn’t you remember the names of your parents and brothers?
He tried to remember his family, to recall a name, any detail of his life before St. Mary’s. He thought he could remember his father laughing and wearing a funny little hat. He thought he remembered two brothers, one bigger than the other.
Memories of his mother were different. Occasional vivid visions of his mother holding him tight, nuzzling his neck, swarmed his thoughts. She had brown hair, like his own, with a face of angles and light. Small eyes, assuredly, also like his, and clean hair as thick and unruly, tied up in a swirling topknot. In dreams and stray thoughts, she was called Josephine; her smile was small, yet captivating; flickering candlelight danced in her eyes.
In his mind, she was always looking kindly at him, smiling.
Always.
Tranquility
Small,
rocky stream
emits tranquil sounds
that soothes the visitor.
No horns, bleating cell phones,
loud marching orders or
blaring TV commercials.
Truly, it's
heaven.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Crinkle, Kris!
The
Gingerbread Man
wanted to surprise
Santa on Christmas Eve.
by poking his patoot with
a striped candy cane.
That surely will
make Kris
crinkle!
Whimsy art: Steve Burnett
Monday, May 18, 2009
I just can't help it!
I’m a smart-ass. Just can’t seem to help it.
Example: I received an email inviting me to become a member of the US Defense Industry Delegation to Iraq (USDID-Iraq). You know, US DID!
Of course, I jumped on the invitation, quick-like, responding: “Oh, my gosh! This sounds too good to be true. Sign me up! What's the next step and when do we leave!!!!”
Another email quickly followed, telling me to look at the attachment. There was none. So a return email went out: “What an honor! Tell me more. There was no attachment but it sounds interesting and educational and extremely bottom linecentric!!!!”
A nice lady named Carla Torres sent me the attachment and told me, “Reveiw (sic) the details of the delegation. The delegation goal is to provide market entry or increased sales in Iraq and access potential business partners. This has the full support of the Iraqi Ministry of Defense and Iraqi Military Commanders who are looking for the products and technologies that will strengthen Iraq’s Sovereignty and security. In addition, members will be able to meet Iraqi Procurement Specialist who are looking forward for the one-to-one meetings with the delegation as they know this will help them get their procurements faster and fairly in order to get the right equipment for the Iraqi Forces at the right price.”
She went on to explain that we’d arrive in Baghdad on July 25, stay at the Al-Rasheed Hotel (No, Rasheed Wallace doesn't own it -- I asked.)and then attend pre-scheduled meeting with “Senior Iraqi Government Officials” before leaving Baghdad on July 31. The price of the trip was $39,985.
She told me to sign the registration form to “finalize my seat.” I was informed that if I had any further questions to contact her. I did, so I did.
“Carla Torres. Project Team Leader:
“I will finalize my seat right this minute.
“Question: The trip costs $39,985! Who pays that? Is this part of the stimulus plan incentive? Man, I had my doubts about that Obama plan ... but not anymore. My form will be coming this afternoon!!!!!”
Carla was quick to get back to me. “The delegates pay the delegation fee.”
A cat-sneeze later, I emailed her: “Thank you! Which delegate should I thank. That is mighty generous!!!!!”
That was two days ago.
I am left with no information about the trip nor who is paying my $39,985 fee.
I now know how an abandoned puppy feels.
Example: I received an email inviting me to become a member of the US Defense Industry Delegation to Iraq (USDID-Iraq). You know, US DID!
Of course, I jumped on the invitation, quick-like, responding: “Oh, my gosh! This sounds too good to be true. Sign me up! What's the next step and when do we leave!!!!”
Another email quickly followed, telling me to look at the attachment. There was none. So a return email went out: “What an honor! Tell me more. There was no attachment but it sounds interesting and educational and extremely bottom linecentric!!!!”
A nice lady named Carla Torres sent me the attachment and told me, “Reveiw (sic) the details of the delegation. The delegation goal is to provide market entry or increased sales in Iraq and access potential business partners. This has the full support of the Iraqi Ministry of Defense and Iraqi Military Commanders who are looking for the products and technologies that will strengthen Iraq’s Sovereignty and security. In addition, members will be able to meet Iraqi Procurement Specialist who are looking forward for the one-to-one meetings with the delegation as they know this will help them get their procurements faster and fairly in order to get the right equipment for the Iraqi Forces at the right price.”
She went on to explain that we’d arrive in Baghdad on July 25, stay at the Al-Rasheed Hotel (No, Rasheed Wallace doesn't own it -- I asked.)and then attend pre-scheduled meeting with “Senior Iraqi Government Officials” before leaving Baghdad on July 31. The price of the trip was $39,985.
She told me to sign the registration form to “finalize my seat.” I was informed that if I had any further questions to contact her. I did, so I did.
“Carla Torres. Project Team Leader:
“I will finalize my seat right this minute.
“Question: The trip costs $39,985! Who pays that? Is this part of the stimulus plan incentive? Man, I had my doubts about that Obama plan ... but not anymore. My form will be coming this afternoon!!!!!”
Carla was quick to get back to me. “The delegates pay the delegation fee.”
A cat-sneeze later, I emailed her: “Thank you! Which delegate should I thank. That is mighty generous!!!!!”
That was two days ago.
I am left with no information about the trip nor who is paying my $39,985 fee.
I now know how an abandoned puppy feels.
Gummit? What's it good for?
What is it about the U.S. gummit that makes it think it can cure all ills, right all wrongs, print more money than there is collateral to back it up and, generally, make hay while the sun shines or the rain falls or there is fog or . . . ?
Our gummit believes it is perfectly appropriate to put a gauzy shroud over the U.S. Constitution when it deems it necessary to do so. It believes that running up massive debt to make sure mismanaged companies -- make that "some companies" -- don't go belly-up is perfectly acceptable. And, it believes that telling half-a-truth is tantamount to being truthful, and putting a "secret" stamp on some project or other to avoid embarrassment is perfectly acceptable.
With the proper public relations spin, our government can instigate a phoney-baloney war or two, watch while American soldiers are killed, and excuse the actions away as the "proper action to take."
There are, however, some things that gummit can not do.
1) Gummit cannot be non-partisan. The labels politicians hang on themselves and others -- Democrat, Republican, right-wing wingnut, left-wing liberal -- prohibit rational thought, a pledge for commonality on common principles and an overall mutual respect. Most Americans are ecoli-ill of partisan politics ... but politicians don't care.
2) Gummit can't balance a budget. No discussion necessary.
3) The leaders of this country can not run gummit like a business, i.e., don't spend more than you take in and show a profit. Forget the profit: How about running the gummit like a non-profit ... just break freakin' even!
4) Gummit can not contol lobbyists. Our elected officials don't run this country ... paid lobbyists do. If you don't believe that . . . you are in need of serious psychological help.
5) Gummit cannot run a business or program of any kind.
It can't run a mail delivery service. Oh, they did okay back when mail was strapped on the back of a horse, but that run of success lasted a few short years. Now the postal service is a disorganized mess where customer service is likened to a unsightly wart.
The gummit can't run a railroad, despite great examples all over the world on how to do exactly that. Amtrak is a joke and has been ever since the gummit started its subsidization of the broken mass transit system.
6) The gummit, when faced with trying to run something they broke in the first place, can't admit failure and seek help from professionals. (See "postal service" and "railroad.")
For example, the government ought to sell the postal system and Amtrak to organized crime. That would solve the problem.
Organized crime has never lost money on any enterprise, and, if the service of both enterprises continued to be horrible ... who would complain?
7) And, gummit will never vote for term limits, and will do whatever it can to prohibit the American people from voting on the question.
But there is one thing gummit officials are very, very good at: Self-perservation.
And the American people allow them to do exactly that, term after term after . . . .
Our gummit believes it is perfectly appropriate to put a gauzy shroud over the U.S. Constitution when it deems it necessary to do so. It believes that running up massive debt to make sure mismanaged companies -- make that "some companies" -- don't go belly-up is perfectly acceptable. And, it believes that telling half-a-truth is tantamount to being truthful, and putting a "secret" stamp on some project or other to avoid embarrassment is perfectly acceptable.
With the proper public relations spin, our government can instigate a phoney-baloney war or two, watch while American soldiers are killed, and excuse the actions away as the "proper action to take."
There are, however, some things that gummit can not do.
1) Gummit cannot be non-partisan. The labels politicians hang on themselves and others -- Democrat, Republican, right-wing wingnut, left-wing liberal -- prohibit rational thought, a pledge for commonality on common principles and an overall mutual respect. Most Americans are ecoli-ill of partisan politics ... but politicians don't care.
2) Gummit can't balance a budget. No discussion necessary.
3) The leaders of this country can not run gummit like a business, i.e., don't spend more than you take in and show a profit. Forget the profit: How about running the gummit like a non-profit ... just break freakin' even!
4) Gummit can not contol lobbyists. Our elected officials don't run this country ... paid lobbyists do. If you don't believe that . . . you are in need of serious psychological help.
5) Gummit cannot run a business or program of any kind.
It can't run a mail delivery service. Oh, they did okay back when mail was strapped on the back of a horse, but that run of success lasted a few short years. Now the postal service is a disorganized mess where customer service is likened to a unsightly wart.
The gummit can't run a railroad, despite great examples all over the world on how to do exactly that. Amtrak is a joke and has been ever since the gummit started its subsidization of the broken mass transit system.
6) The gummit, when faced with trying to run something they broke in the first place, can't admit failure and seek help from professionals. (See "postal service" and "railroad.")
For example, the government ought to sell the postal system and Amtrak to organized crime. That would solve the problem.
Organized crime has never lost money on any enterprise, and, if the service of both enterprises continued to be horrible ... who would complain?
7) And, gummit will never vote for term limits, and will do whatever it can to prohibit the American people from voting on the question.
But there is one thing gummit officials are very, very good at: Self-perservation.
And the American people allow them to do exactly that, term after term after . . . .
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Problem ... and solution
NEW COMPANY TO AID NON-PROFIT GROUPS
Picture this: You are the executive director of a small, non-profit association. You have the education, the experience, the drive and the will to succeed in running a successful business whose only objective is to help your clients and their families.
Your budget is tight, but with a dedicated staff, you provide exceptional services for a diverse client base. Your efforts are appreciated by your association board, the families of your clients, and the state.
But, like most small non-profit associations, you could use more money to expand services.
That describes Mattie Smith Cummins to a T.
Cummins, a masters level social worker, is executive director of the Brain Injury Association of Arizona (BIAAZ) -- www.biaaz.org. Over the last several years, she has worked to return the association to fiscal viability, written and received grants, and had orchestrated successful fundraisers. She was looking for other ways to raise money, looking down new paths to bring needed dollars into the association.
Her father, longtime newspaper editor and publisher George S. Smith, sent her several miniature watercolors that a friend had done. Attached to the drawing was several poems Smith had written. The poems were in a style Smith called "lowku," a personalized offshoot of haiku poetry, but with words substituted for syllables. Each lowku has nine lines, 25 words.
Cummins and her father discussed the possibilities or how art and words could blend together to create something that could be used in a fundraising event.
Less than a month later, a new company had emerged, Whimsy Creations, LLC. Using the unique art of Steve Burnett of New York City, and poems written by Smith, the first project took was developing a limited edition poster and post cards for BIAAZ.
In this initial effort, Burnett and Smith realized something important. "Creating Whimsy products is a way of giving something tangible to worthwhile, small non-profit associations," Smith said. "With most association-targeted, fund-raising projects, about 40-50 percent of the proceeds go to the originating company. It sounds odd, I know, but Steve and I agree that this is not a money-making operation. We both have been blessed in so many ways and we feel a need to try and give something back to communities through worthwhile, local organizations."
Whimsy Creations charges 10 percent (or $1,000, whichever is less) from expected sales and the money received "is designated to a fund that will be used to help start-up associations have a free fundraiser."
Burnett said there's nothing "like Whimsys on the market. Each one is personalized to individual clients and the art and words are tailored to fit each situation in a unique way."
Cummins said, "The vivid image and description of the journey of survivors of brain injury tells the story at a glance. The uniqueness allows us to use it to raise needed funds, and also gives donors a once-in-a-lifetime memento of their contribution." Smith estimated the association will raise $8.000 to $10,000 from the posters and 1,000 large post cards. The association plans to sell 100 numbered posters, 25 of which will be signed by Burnett and Smith.
Whimsy Creations is targeting small, non-profit associations which fill a niche in serving special needs in communities. Inquiry letters can be sent to gsid143@gmail.com. Letters should include the association's mission statement, program or scope of work, and a short letter detailing how a unique Whimsy will be used to raise funds.
The art and poem set is not limited to posters and post cards. "Whatever anyone wants to print it on -- coffee mugs, plaques, t-shirts, banners ... it makes no difference. The exclusive reprint rights belong to that particular association, he said.
The new company has also entered into partnership with a printing company that gives discounts on printing to Whimsy clients.
When an association is approved, Burnett and Smith will work with clients to develop a complete marketing and promotion plan, including recommendations on how to maximize the amount of funds to be raised.
Picture this: You are the executive director of a small, non-profit association. You have the education, the experience, the drive and the will to succeed in running a successful business whose only objective is to help your clients and their families.
Your budget is tight, but with a dedicated staff, you provide exceptional services for a diverse client base. Your efforts are appreciated by your association board, the families of your clients, and the state.
But, like most small non-profit associations, you could use more money to expand services.
That describes Mattie Smith Cummins to a T.
Cummins, a masters level social worker, is executive director of the Brain Injury Association of Arizona (BIAAZ) -- www.biaaz.org. Over the last several years, she has worked to return the association to fiscal viability, written and received grants, and had orchestrated successful fundraisers. She was looking for other ways to raise money, looking down new paths to bring needed dollars into the association.
Her father, longtime newspaper editor and publisher George S. Smith, sent her several miniature watercolors that a friend had done. Attached to the drawing was several poems Smith had written. The poems were in a style Smith called "lowku," a personalized offshoot of haiku poetry, but with words substituted for syllables. Each lowku has nine lines, 25 words.
Cummins and her father discussed the possibilities or how art and words could blend together to create something that could be used in a fundraising event.
Less than a month later, a new company had emerged, Whimsy Creations, LLC. Using the unique art of Steve Burnett of New York City, and poems written by Smith, the first project took was developing a limited edition poster and post cards for BIAAZ.
In this initial effort, Burnett and Smith realized something important. "Creating Whimsy products is a way of giving something tangible to worthwhile, small non-profit associations," Smith said. "With most association-targeted, fund-raising projects, about 40-50 percent of the proceeds go to the originating company. It sounds odd, I know, but Steve and I agree that this is not a money-making operation. We both have been blessed in so many ways and we feel a need to try and give something back to communities through worthwhile, local organizations."
Whimsy Creations charges 10 percent (or $1,000, whichever is less) from expected sales and the money received "is designated to a fund that will be used to help start-up associations have a free fundraiser."
Burnett said there's nothing "like Whimsys on the market. Each one is personalized to individual clients and the art and words are tailored to fit each situation in a unique way."
Cummins said, "The vivid image and description of the journey of survivors of brain injury tells the story at a glance. The uniqueness allows us to use it to raise needed funds, and also gives donors a once-in-a-lifetime memento of their contribution." Smith estimated the association will raise $8.000 to $10,000 from the posters and 1,000 large post cards. The association plans to sell 100 numbered posters, 25 of which will be signed by Burnett and Smith.
Whimsy Creations is targeting small, non-profit associations which fill a niche in serving special needs in communities. Inquiry letters can be sent to gsid143@gmail.com. Letters should include the association's mission statement, program or scope of work, and a short letter detailing how a unique Whimsy will be used to raise funds.
The art and poem set is not limited to posters and post cards. "Whatever anyone wants to print it on -- coffee mugs, plaques, t-shirts, banners ... it makes no difference. The exclusive reprint rights belong to that particular association, he said.
The new company has also entered into partnership with a printing company that gives discounts on printing to Whimsy clients.
When an association is approved, Burnett and Smith will work with clients to develop a complete marketing and promotion plan, including recommendations on how to maximize the amount of funds to be raised.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
They say . . .
Have you ever stopped to realize that most of the history we know is because someone said something. You know, like in "They say . . . ."
I'm presently preoccupied with writing stories of growing up in Avery, Texas, population 332. It was, and is, a poke-and-plumb town: Poke your head out the window and you're plumb out of town.
There is not a better place on the planet in which to grow up. Especially if you were me and a certified idiot that needed an entire village to watch over you.
Here's a preview:
Earliest memories
I remember being cold. And hungry. And upset enough to cry. And, sometimes, as happy as an Alaskan malamute with a frozen halibut. And I definitely remember a large dog. Or it might have been a winter coat. That part's a bit unclear.
That’s about it.
They say . . .
They say that when I was born, my mother was sick for a spell, and had bad milk, making nursing out of the question.
As was the custom in the mid-40s more than anyone will admit today, I was stuck lips-to-nipple with a Negro wet nurse named Mattie. When told the story years later, it seemed odd to me that I was wet-nursed by a woman named Mattie, since that was my grandmother’s name, and the name of my oldest daughter.
Mattie, the one not my grandmother or my daughter, had a new baby, and they say I would nurse on one tit while the black woman’s son mewled at the other. I don't remember anyone ever saying it was a cute picture, this Oreo Sampler, but it surely must have been.
Being it was the 40’s and all, I assumed for years that it was a pleasure for black Mattie to say to all her friends that she kept the cutest white baby in the world alive. I never thought to ask about whether she was paid, but I hope so since I was an early teether and had the biting power of an alligator.
At some point not long after my birth, some doctor in Hope prescribed a special formula for milk substitute, which, if my Aunt Betty Ann is to be believed, “took a bunch of folks a long time to make.” She said it took something like “eighty drops of lactic acid” in milk with ample stirring after each drop. I have taken it for granted for decades now, but suppose I should be thankful I came from a family that could count higher than twenty, that being the number of fingers and toes on most people.
They say I was born Julia Chester Hospital on No. 4 Highway South. In the same hospital that on the morning of Aug. 19, 1946 – ten months and sixteen days after my birth -- a baby was born under a clear sky after a violent summer storm to a widowed mother. The baby was William Jefferson Blythe III. At least that’s what Bill Clinton wrote in his autobiography. “Clear sky after a violent summer storm.” They say no one ever knew Clinton had a poetic streak, or even that he knew a ghostwriter who did.
Looking back, the fact that Bill Clinton and I were born in the same hospital was no big deal, since it was the only hospital within thirty-five miles. My sister was born in the same hospital six years and two days after I was born. And, again, that was a smaller deal than Clinton's birth.
The hospital was later was converted into a nursing home. That building housed diaper-changing shifts for more than 700 consecutive months before it was torn down.
I don't care what they say: That there is real history and the stuff about which history books are written.
I'm presently preoccupied with writing stories of growing up in Avery, Texas, population 332. It was, and is, a poke-and-plumb town: Poke your head out the window and you're plumb out of town.
There is not a better place on the planet in which to grow up. Especially if you were me and a certified idiot that needed an entire village to watch over you.
Here's a preview:
Earliest memories
I remember being cold. And hungry. And upset enough to cry. And, sometimes, as happy as an Alaskan malamute with a frozen halibut. And I definitely remember a large dog. Or it might have been a winter coat. That part's a bit unclear.
That’s about it.
They say . . .
They say that when I was born, my mother was sick for a spell, and had bad milk, making nursing out of the question.
As was the custom in the mid-40s more than anyone will admit today, I was stuck lips-to-nipple with a Negro wet nurse named Mattie. When told the story years later, it seemed odd to me that I was wet-nursed by a woman named Mattie, since that was my grandmother’s name, and the name of my oldest daughter.
Mattie, the one not my grandmother or my daughter, had a new baby, and they say I would nurse on one tit while the black woman’s son mewled at the other. I don't remember anyone ever saying it was a cute picture, this Oreo Sampler, but it surely must have been.
Being it was the 40’s and all, I assumed for years that it was a pleasure for black Mattie to say to all her friends that she kept the cutest white baby in the world alive. I never thought to ask about whether she was paid, but I hope so since I was an early teether and had the biting power of an alligator.
At some point not long after my birth, some doctor in Hope prescribed a special formula for milk substitute, which, if my Aunt Betty Ann is to be believed, “took a bunch of folks a long time to make.” She said it took something like “eighty drops of lactic acid” in milk with ample stirring after each drop. I have taken it for granted for decades now, but suppose I should be thankful I came from a family that could count higher than twenty, that being the number of fingers and toes on most people.
They say I was born Julia Chester Hospital on No. 4 Highway South. In the same hospital that on the morning of Aug. 19, 1946 – ten months and sixteen days after my birth -- a baby was born under a clear sky after a violent summer storm to a widowed mother. The baby was William Jefferson Blythe III. At least that’s what Bill Clinton wrote in his autobiography. “Clear sky after a violent summer storm.” They say no one ever knew Clinton had a poetic streak, or even that he knew a ghostwriter who did.
Looking back, the fact that Bill Clinton and I were born in the same hospital was no big deal, since it was the only hospital within thirty-five miles. My sister was born in the same hospital six years and two days after I was born. And, again, that was a smaller deal than Clinton's birth.
The hospital was later was converted into a nursing home. That building housed diaper-changing shifts for more than 700 consecutive months before it was torn down.
I don't care what they say: That there is real history and the stuff about which history books are written.
Sunday, May 10, 2009
An apt ending point
A
once-empty
page stares from
the computer screen as
words tumble in a waterfall
of gushing verbiage. Only
way to quell
the flow . . .
quit.
once-empty
page stares from
the computer screen as
words tumble in a waterfall
of gushing verbiage. Only
way to quell
the flow . . .
quit.
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Time not great healer
Time
may not
heal all wounds.
Some remain open, bloody
despite all the best efforts
to erase the hurt
and the pain
that love
causes.
may not
heal all wounds.
Some remain open, bloody
despite all the best efforts
to erase the hurt
and the pain
that love
causes.
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