I have been thinking about this for several weeks. I checked my Face Book page today and have a number of requests to re post this if you, "support" "believe" "want" "respect" or "honor" several different things. Some ask for an hour, some ask for a day, some just ask.
I am not forced to read these requests and know I can just pass them by. But, I do read them and I feel for these type posts. I also feel like a schmuck when I ignore them and that's entirely my fault. No one can make me feel guilty, but me.
In 2008 someone going on a cruise with us suggested Face Book. I took a look then, but it seemed too complicated and I didn't sign on. About six months later Older Daughter Jennifer sent me an invite. I registered then and have been using and enjoying it since. Aside from a link to the blog when I write, I seldom begin a topic. I do respond to posts and leave comments regularly.
Sorry, I just can't do the re posts. Like I said, I feel for them, all. I just don't think they are going to make a difference. Awareness is nice but I truly think of them in the same light as chain letters. Or, the e mails that are sent out that tell you to send them along to ten friends, or, you will go straight to Hell. STOP IT, I have enough to worry about already. Am I the only person who feels like I am almost being held hostage with these requests?
I'm already apologizing for my feelings and this is my blog. Talk about Jewish guilt, jeez. Without the benefit of verbal cadence, tone, or sound variation, sarcasm and cynicism can be easily mistaken for hopelessness and depression. Sometimes, when I'm writing I feel like I'm walking a tightrope (which is something I would never do as I am afraid of heights). Very often I don't say what I am thinking as I don't want to get anyone mad or angry with me. I think I will start keeping a log book of sorts. At the end of the year I'll mail, privately, exactly what I think to each person on Face Book, thereby, killing two birds with one stone (so to speak). I will thin out my friends list and I'll be helping the US Postal Service.
Several changes have come about due to my "taking care of brother" time in Michigan. The best of them is my continued phone relationship with my Aunt Lee. Prior to going back I had been calling her on Sunday. When I was there last year I was keeping the family updated via e mail and Lee via telephone. I called her every evening when I was trying to wind down. I've continued calling since I returned home. She is a very wise and knowledgeable lady and has helped me sort through a number of things.
I'm asking something of those of you reading this today. Between now and Sunday think of someone who was at one time in your life and isn't now. Someone you are not communicating with, for whatever reason, and contact them. Call, send an e mail, send a letter, post a message on Face Book, send an owl, whatever. Forget the reason you are not talking and use this as a reason, to talk. Just do it and see what happens, you may be surprised. If you have someone like this in your life, and lots of us do, I have a real good way to start, say hello.
Are you giving it some thought? Good
It's really easy if you just say hello, the politicians should try it.
A couple of things in today's news that struck me as funny, odd, interesting and, scary.
The United States Postal Service is looking into closing 10% of it's "retail stores"......Think, where grumpy people go to work.
In recent years business has declined sharply as first-class mail moved to the Internet. In addition, the recession resulted in a decline in advertising mail, and the agency lost $8 billion last year......and yesterday's blog was titled Duhhhhhhhhh?
In addition to closing offices, the Postal Service has sharply reduced its staff over the past several years and cut billions of dollars from its costs. It also has asked Congress to allow it to cut back delivery to five days a week and to ease the requirement for an annual $5.5 billion payment to fund future retiree health benefits.
No other federal agency is required to make such a payment, but because of the complex way federal finances work the payment counts as income to the government and ending it would make the federal deficit appear larger.
What? This is obviously "New Math" and I can't be the only person that doesn't understand it, maybe that's the point? No wonder finances and budgets are so screwed up. I love the use of the word appear, as in, federal deficit "appear" larger........Bullwinkle to Rocky, "And now, watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat.".......remember, he would get a rhino or a deer or his own hand, but never a rabbit
How many of you think it would be just fine to drop Saturday mail delivery? Most everyone, right? It could be as easy as putting the question on Face Book for a one or two day vote. But, no! The government will debate about this for ten years. By the time they come up with a decision to drop delivery to five days it will be time to drop it to four......but, isn't that the way they handle most everything?
McDonald's is making changes to the menu.
Ladies and gentlemen we have the great food chain thinking about children and health.
McDonald's is adding apples to all its Happy Meals.
The changes underscore how the restaurant industry is reacting to the demands of customers and regulators who blame it for health ills ranging from childhood obesity to diabetes.......CUSTOMERS blame it?.....what happened to, don't eat there?
Among other changes in McDonald's new program:
McDonald's pledged to reduce sugars, saturated fats and calories through "varied portion sizes, reformulations and innovations" by 2020. It didn't give details. By 2015, it will reduce sodium by 15 percent............it's going to take four years to stop using the salt shaker? Maybe they have a four year supply of food already prepared and in the freezer? Nine years to figure out how to make the portions smaller? That's really a toughie.....when I want to eat less, I put less on my plate.
For Happy Meals, U.S. customers can already choose between apples or fries. But only about 11 percent of customers were ordering apples........Gosh, what a surprise that is!
So by the beginning of next year, McDonald's will instead include a half-order of apples and a half-order of fries. Customers can get all fries or all apples if they ask......I'm sure the percent of customers asking for all apples will go to at least 12 percent next year. I'm also sure McDonald's will be wasting a lot of perfectly good apples.
This isn't the first time the world's largest burger chain has tried to paint itself as an emissary of nutrition. In the '80s it created a fitness program for middle schoolers featuring gymnast Mary Lou Retton. A decade ago, McDonald's used spokes clown Ronald McDonald to encourage parents to get their children immunized and to tell kids to drink milk. In 2004, McDonald's christened Ronald a "balanced, active lifestyles ambassador" and passed out pedometers to encourage exercise.........and then a large number of kids passed out.
Ronald McDonald encouraging parents to get their kids shots and tell them to drink milk? That's just plain scary.
...........and, I saved the best for last:
A Southern California man stuck a butter knife into his belly in a failed bid at self-surgery to remove a painful hernia, police said Tuesday. The wife of the 63-year-old Glendale man called 911 on Sunday night and told the emergency operator her husband was using a knife to remove a protruding hernia.
"She said he had impaled himself with a knife"
Officers found the man naked on a patio lounge chair outside his apartment with a 6-inch butter knife sticking out of his stomach.
The man's wife told officers that her husband was upset about the hernia and wanted to take it out.
I'm telling you, some people have all the fun!
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