How screwy is this world?

Take a minute. Close your eyes. Breathe deeply. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale.

Open your eyes and scream at the top your lungs: Stop the insanity!

Item 1: The United States is going to build a new embassy in London. There has been no statement on what was wrong with the old embassy, just that we're building a new one.

The location for the embassy will be outside of Central London, and will have humongous trees, and ponds and natural barricades to keep terrorists out. Being it's England, there'll probably be peacocks roaming the grounds, along with black and white swans, and probably a small herd of those smallish animals the English like to call forest deer.

The official reason for why this country is building a new embassy is typical: "Just because." That's not the official reason given, but the accurate one.

The new building will cost $1 billion.

Good gosh, Maudie!

This country is drowning in red ink and we're spending $1,000,000,000 on a building in London? What is wrong with our leaders? What is wrong with us for electing the same yahoos over and over again?

Item 2: As a personal policy, every American can change this country overnight by going to the polls in November and refusing to vote for a single incumbent. Make a stand. If we don't do it now, we have no right to gripe and moan in the future.

Item 3: The military's don't ask, don't tell policy on gay soldiers is asinine, discriminatory and violates federal law. Personal opinions on the issue are the issue; the law is.

Army Chief of Staff George Casey believes that repealing the current shhhhhh policy could do harm to the military. He's paid to say that and he does a good job at parroting the military position for the past 200 years.

But Casey is missing a point: Gays have always served in the military; some have received the Congressional Medal of Honor. For decades, blacks were not allowed to serve in white units; women were not allowed to serve at all, and still today are "prohibited" from front line duty. Those rules did not keep these brave soldiers for dying for their country.

Discrimination in some form has always been a trademark of the military and it's current internal stance on gay soldiers is just wrong-headed.

Circumference of Me

Hiccups are no big deal

It’s important for managers -- in business and in life -- to learn what mistakes are important and what are merely hiccups in life.

A hiccup is here and gone. It is not a permanent condition. A single hiccup occurrence leaves no permanent damage and few people remember you ever had it.
A business hiccup is . . .
 An email sent without its intended attachment.
 A typographical error in a report.
 Writing down the wrong time for a meeting.
 Missing a minor deadline.

Life hiccups include:
 Forgetting the name of the restaurant where you are meeting your significant other.
 Forgetting something on the grocery list.
 Men: Forgetting to put down the toilet seat ... or worse, not putting it up in the first place.
 Women: Griping at men for not putting up or down the toilet seat.

There is a major chasm between a hiccup and a certified disaster.

It is a frightful part of human nature that some people cannot differentiate between the a hiccup and a disaster. A temporarily misplaced report arouses the same reactions in some people as does a lost account.

For active, multi-tasking managers in business and in life, hiccups are like mosquitoes in swampy areas, they are going to pop up no matter what you do. Hiccups, while aggravating, don’t ever make or break careers. That is reserved for the reactions of those who do the hiccupping or evaluate their effect on the business.

Swallow the hiccup by acknowledging it as a mistake, apologize if necessary, and get on to more important issues.

There will be bumps long life's path. A bump is a bump. Don’t make it bigger than it is and don’t allow it to ruin the journey.

Circumference of Me is a book in progress by Steve Burnett of New York City and George Smith of Cabot, Arkansas.

Where have all the heroes gone?

The United States is in a world of hurt.

Just take a look at the headlines: Record deficit piled on top of record deficit. piled on the back of taxpayers – the ancients and those future ones still learning to pull up their diapers.

We’re fighting two wars we can’t win; chances are there’s an army general or three looking at future war sites in case there’s ever a scenario in which we can extricate ourselves from Afghanistan and Iraq.

God knows this country can’t properly function without a good war or two to keep our minds off other problems.

Shoot, about that next war: Iran is handy and that Amenijarhead needs a good butt-stomping!

We bail out banks that are too big to fail and carmakers who give too much money to elected officials to be allowed to go belly-up. The home of free enterprise has evolved into the home of the free lunch money.

After 9/11 we added a bloated level of bureaucracy that checks our shoes for bombs and thinks its part of their job to frisk a little old lady named Gladys because a similar name appeared on some risk-list somehow.

Wear a doctor’s ordered back brace and try and go through airport security and you risk a real chance of a two-saddle-wide security guard playing hide-the-finger in orifices high and low.

We elect mealy-mouthed word-weasels with the backbone of melted Jello to represent us in Congress and sit back and adore their protestations about anything in which we think we don’t believe but are not sure because we don’t listen because we might miss the newest episode of the stupid, pouty Kardashians or Survivors in Watts if we stopped long enough to have a single, uncommercialzed thought.

Look in the mirror. That’s what a lemming looks like. If you vote to re-elect a single politician – ever -- that contributed to the Hellmess in which this country finds itself, you deserve what you get.

If you believe a single word that comes out of the mouth of any politician already in office and trying to stay in office, shame on you. If you believe a single word that comes out of the mouth of any politician trying to replace an incumbent politician, shame on you again.

Politicians, with few exceptions, will do whatever it takes to get elected and stay elected.

Wait up. Vote them all out and start over. That, and only that, will send a message that we are tried of monkey business as usual.

This announcement didn’t cost you a durn thing…except the time to read it.

Pity the maroons of the world

The January 19 Massachusetts election in which the so-called Kennedy Seat in the Senate was lost to a Republican brought mixed emotions around the country. Democrats were wailing and tearing at their (or somebody’s) breasts and Republicans were rubbing their hands over boiling caldrons of political goo and laughing likes Shakespeare’s witches.

But on the Pay-Back Front, minions were hard at work.

Coming back from lunch on the 20^th, I noted that I had a voice mail from an 888 number. Knowing I had paid my last bill from Patty Lou’s Party Hearty website, I listened to the voicemail with no apprehension at all.

It was Sen. Scott Brown hissownself. He voice-mailed me thanking me for the support of “your senator, John McCain.” The message was paid for by the “Friends of John McCain” group.

My senator?

McCain represents AZ. I live in AR.

And the number the message went to had a California prefix (Internet phone system)

Geographically challenged, are we, Sen. Brown?

An honor I am due, assuredly

Oh, my! Good frogs-a-goshen!!!!!!

I am being honored and I have to tell somebody, so listen up.

I received an official email that was official. It said so in the Subject Line: Official Notification. It said so in the text header: You are officially being considered …

I knew I was special. My mama told me so and so did at least one girlfriend back in college. I believe it was the blind one who was tired of living under her parent’s trailer. I believed both of them … then and now.

The honor was thusly written:

It is my honor to inform you that as of January 20, 2010 you are being considered for inclusion in our forethcoming (sic) edition of the 2010 directory representing the WHO'S WHO of Worldclass (sic) Professionals.

Our alliance is recognized by talented individuals who hold knowledge and experience in a particular industry, demonstrate a commitment to excellence, and seek career advancement or enhancement.

On behalf of the CEO and our esteemed staff, we wish you continued success.

Your profile:
 
http://www.George.Smith.cbnworldwide.com 



Sincerely, 
C.G. Meyers

Vice President, Research Division 
Continental Broadcasting Network

Who's Who Worldclass Alliance

23 Briaroot Dr

Smithtown NY 11787

This has got to be the real magilla! I know official when I see it and this is official, because it’s signed by Mr. Meyers, a VICE PRESIDENT!

I jumped to the website address to check on me, and got a “server not responding.” It had to be an error. It was! The next 27 times I went to the site I was rewarded with a white screen with a big, black border around it. Knowing a thing or three about the sideloading or uplifting or whatever of computers and SiburrSpace, I waited. Went to lunch and came back and waited some more.

Nothing popped up but I’m there it’s a server problem somewhere, what those are and whatever problems they cause.

A Worldclass Professional. Me?

Who would ever have thunk it?

Lord! Help those can need your help

Many Americans remember a time when Pat Robertson was a relevant figure in several public arenas – political, charismatic, figurehead, and televangelist.

Now, like many so-called Christian egomaniacs who preceded him – Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, Jimmy Swaggart, Oral Roberts and Jerry Falwell, just as a start – shows himself to be an ignorant bigot and hypocrite.

Robertson has made the news by proclaiming that the earthquake in Haiti, which has killed innumerable people and devastated a devastatingly poor country, was decreed by God because the Haitians had signed a pact with the devil. They are now, he said, paying the price for turning their back on God.

“They are cursed,” he said on his television program. “They signed a pact with the devil.”

Beyond the fact that Haiti is mostly Christian, Robertson emphatically stated that Haiti broke free from France under Napoleon III, who came to power in 1850's. A simple Google search pointed to the fact that Haiti broke free from France in 1804.

On top of that all, Robertson proclaimed the country sharing the island with Haiti, the Dominican Republic, is prosperous and well off. Has he ever been there? There are pockets of affluence in the Dominican Republic, but for the most part, poverty is a way of life there.

Forget the ignorance. Forget the bigotry. Forget that he has not a clue about what he proclaims. Let’s say, just for the sake of discourse, that God did cause the earthquake down in Haiti to “pay (the Godless Haitians) back” for some slight or error in judgment.

So, Pat, if God is punishing Haitians by throwing an earthquake at them, what do you say about a tornado that razes a Southern Baptist church in Alabama in which 10 parishioners die?

Regardless of what you believe, on which side of the political aisle you lean, or your personal religious beliefs, this ancient wacko’s vitriolic spital should be disavowed.

God help the Haitians. Don't waste your time on people like Robertson, who thinks they are ordained by God’s to turn bovine excrement into truisms.

The case for sterilization

Every once in a while there comes along a story which gives credence to starting a national program for involuntary sterilization of select citizens. Here are some candidates for first-dibs:

1) A woman in Kerrville who called 911 because her husband refused to eat his dinner. (It’s one thing to call 911 after someone has eaten dinner, but simply because they didn’t want to eat is not a good reason to dial the three magic digits.)

2) A woman in Boston who called 911 to report her 14-year-old son would not quit playing video games.The woman actually told a newspaper that she was glad she had the support of her church in the matter but she called police “because my son didn’t respect his mother.” (Somebody hold me back before I go smack the son … or the mother!)

3) A woman who went calmly into a story in Athens, Ga., and tried to return some items valued at a total of $7. Told she couldn’t return them without a receipt, the lady went bonkers, destroying more than $1,000 worth of perfume. (In a bad economy, the store probably was glad for the sale.)

4) U.S. Rep. Parker Griffith of Alabama who switched political parties recently. One morning he was a Democrat, that afternoon he was a Republican. Griffith waxed eloquently about how he could no long align himself with a party that is doing so many things wrong. And, when asked about other Dems turning GOPer, he said, “If they do, I hope it’s on conviction and not politics.” (This was the statement by the man who was expected to get hammered next year in his re-election bid in a district that voted overwhelmingly for John McCain last year.)

5) Missouri Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder has a web section on his official government site called
"Kinder's Kids." One page is titled "Famous Missourians." One of the best know is Mark Twain,
who Kinder identifies as Samuel Longhorn Clemens. Last time we checked, Clemens' middle
name was Langhorn. (That's what you get, one can suspect, for hiring your cousin's niece's kid
as a summer intern and putting him or her in charge of updating the web site.)

6) House Speaker Harry Reid, who pushed like a bull ox to secure enough votes for health care
reform voted no when the bill came up for vote. He changed his vote, pleading the case that he
was "tired." (As are we all, and add "sick" to the description of our ailment).

7) California's GOP governor, Arhnold Schwarzenegger, appealed to the Obama administration
for help when the state's budget deficit rose to $21 billion. (Come on, Arhnold, the U.S. deficit
is bigger than that. Suck it up and quite whining.)

Who else would you put on the list?

(Submit potential candidates to gsid143@gmail.com)