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My Thoughts for Senator Joe Wilson

I watched President Obama's Healthcare speech last night. The rights - or wrongs - of that speech

are subject for others to debate. My concern today is with Senator Joe Wilson of South Carolina. Senator Wilson is the person who did the 'shout out' to the President last night, saying, "You Lie". Here is the email I sent to Senator Wilson today:

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Dear Senator Wilson,
 
Respect should not be partisan.
 
You crossed a line that a simple apology does not erase. I understand that your politics are different from the of the president. And I may even agree with you to some degree, politically. But this is not about politics. This is about civility and respect. You may have been right - his words may be a  'lie'. I don't know. But I do know that I teared up when I heard the collective breath that the audience took, with your remark.
 
My dad wasn't always right. But I always showed him respect. Always. Would you have spoken so harshly, so publically, to any single one of your SC constituents? I doubt it. Because it is the wrong thing to do...to be disrespectful...ever. Even when you think the other person is wrong. Even if they have wronged you. You don't try to one-up them in disrespect. You show them who is the better person, by being the better person. Take the high road. In your position, there is no need to be a bully. You hold a position of respect and honor. You need to behave honorably.
 
How did you personally feel when you heard about the 'shoe throwing' incident with President Bush? Did it please you? Did you think the offender was justified? I did not. I was sad, shameful, that that had happened to the President of the United States. And in that case, it was not even one of our own who did it. In your case, you brought shame on us, the US, the collective body that is and represents the US. Others did also, but you did most vocally, most disrespectfully. Maybe because you are in the public eye with this incident, you can use it to bring about positive change.
 
I hope that you learn from this Senator Wilson. I hope that you can use this unfortunate incident to make something good come about. I really think at this point, you could use the good Karma. I wish you all the best as you reflect on your actions, and what you can do differently in the days to come. I think lots of us will be watching.
 

Hometown

I went back recently to my the town where I was born. I had not been back in some 33 years.  I left when I was just 15 years old.

In my memory, my hometown was enormous - stretching for miles in each direction from town center. The buildings were tall and foreboding. It was a dark and cold place. I have good memories from those first 15 years, but frankly, I have many more that are dark and…well, just sad.

So I expected that as I drove into my hometown, that I would see dilapidated buildings, stunted growth, sadness. I am not sure why that’s what I expected to find, but none the less, that was the picture in my head.

What I found instead was a beautiful little town - like so many other small towns that dot the center of the country. The requisite streets lined with McDonalds and Jiffy Lube, Subway and check cashing shops definitely exist. But sandwiched between the commerce are beautiful, tree-lined streets with well manicured houses. I found the homes of some of the friends of my youth  - now all inhabited by new families. I stopped by the church where I was Baptized as an infant. That church is gone, but a new one stands in its place.

I also found, having to rely on the services of my GPS, that the town stretches, end to end, in 2.9 miles. That’s all that there is or ever was. That seems so strange. I remember it much larger…but I was much smaller then too! I run that distance now regularly in 5Ks - The distance that extends from end to end of my hometown.

 In truth, at this point, I know absolutely no one who lives in my hometown now. How odd, when in my memory I know so many people, I can see them so clearly, going about their daily lives there, just 33 or more years ago.

I’m glad I went. It was unsettling, but somehow reassuring.  My life now is so much better than it was then. And the town seems happier, gentler. I don’t see it as a dark place now. On this one point, I’m glad I had the opportunity to reshape my memory.

How Things Work

Hubby is particularly gifted at figuring out how things work. This is particularly helpful when things stop working. He often can review the non-working item and quickly restore order.

I am amazed at this skillset. I do not own this ability - in any form or fashion.

When my computer goes blank or zooms the screen to 5% of its previous viewing space or when the dryer starts making funny noises or when the boat engine starts sputtering, Hubby is there, quick to assess and fix.

In a recent boat incident, our engine began smoking and generally making unpleasant noises. I was ready to call the boat engine guys to come assess. Not Hubby. He wandered off and came back with a assemblage of  boat gurus from our dock. After some consultation, Hubby began disassembling. He replaced something called the impeller and we’re back in business. (Still not sure about the parts left over, but that’s another story).

I recently saw a TV show about a magician who has perfected the ‘cloak of invisibility’ such that he is able to make cars and boats disappear, right in front of large audiences.

Like most, I am amazed. I don’t get it. I can’t even get a corner of an idea on how he might be performing this trick.

Fixing things - even basic things seems magical. As magical as making large items of transport disappear.

It is humbling to realize that there are things - major things - in my world, that I will never understand. In fact, there are things in my world that are completely outside of my scope of reason. I can see, but I can’t understand. At all. Not even a little.

I’m certainly no brain surgeon, but it seems like I ought to have a better handle on the common things in my world. At this point in my life, I still can’t get the DVD recorder to record reliably. I really don’t understand why I am required to press the certain sequence of buttons on the dishwasher that lead to clean dishes. And there is just one TV in our house that I can reliably turn on and off without invoking messages about gaming systems status or TIVO positioning requirements.

I’ve droned - some would probably say - at nausium on this subject. It just frustrates the heck out of me when I can’t do or understand something that is relevant or important to me. (See earlier Redhead temper post).

It recently occurred to me that the frustration is really kind of silly. I’m never going to be able to read a blueprint or understand a schematic. But I know lots of people who can. If I can’t program my DVD, there are others there who can and do. And when the boat has problems (which is really almost constant) the good sailors on the dock are beyond helpful. And maybe most importantly to me, when all the little, mundane things in my world fail, Hubby is almost always there to fix what needs repair. Can’t really get luckier than that!

Our New Love

      

We’ve got a new love in our lives, Hubby and I. When Son when off to college and we became empty-nesters last fall, Hubby and I decided to fill the open time with a new hobby. After a couple of false-starts with gardening and home remodeling (which we mutually determined are really neither our interests nor our forte’s ), we decided to look for something more…fun.

We decided to buy a boat.

Before you tell me the stories of how a boat is really just hole in the water where  you put money and that boat stands for bill-out-another-thousand, let me assure you that we have actually already proven both of those axioms.

It is clear from the onset that boat types fit people personality types. There are fast boats that speed through the water and often pull skiers behind them. Folks in a hurry seem to be attracted to these types of boats. We’ve been in a hurry for a long time. I don’t want to be in a hurry now. Now I want to be peaceful. Fast boats that rocket people and things behind them do not seem to be peaceful. I do not see happiness for us with a fast boat.

There are fishing boats, which obviously cater to anglers. The boat is a means to the sport of fishing. Sometimes it’s a little more than that I think, but in general, fishing boats help fisherman to fish. We don’t fish. A fishing boat is an obvious misfit for us.

Enter the sailboat. Sailboats leave a small footprint – very little engine, used primarily to get in and out of the slip. All the rest is wind power. I like that. Sailing requires a new language and a bunch of new skills. Learning keeps us young. I worry about that now, so I like the learning opportunities with sailing. I had never consciously considered in my nearly 50 years, where the wind is coming from. For sailors, that is second nature. There is work involved in sailing, and frankly, it can be hard work. Physical work. Maybe even a means to use Kettle bell muscles?

Most of all though, sailing isn’t a means to an end. It doesn’t enable the sailor to drag a skier. It doesn’t get you somewhere as fast as possible. When you set off to sail, you often aren’t headed anywhere, other than where you already are, sailing. Peaceful. Now that’s a pastime to love.

What's a Kettlebell?

    My sister is a trainer. She looks at weights and grows muscle. She watches the treadmill and sheds calories. If you want to hate her now, you should also know that she's tall and naturally blond and looks a heck of a lot closer to 30, than the 40+ that she really is. And she's a nice person on top of that. 

So in my quest to get fit, my sister suggested that I investigate these interesting little toture tools called Kettlebells. Here's what mine look like:

They look pretty harmless - even kind of cute in the lime green. But boy let me tell you, these little cast iron balls can really do a number. You can do all sorts of odd things with them  - swing them, lift them up, and in one particularly harrowing move, flip them over your head while you twist them behind your wrist. (Nope, I can't do that one - probably never will either). But what I can tell you is that if you want to build muscle, you don't want to have to go to the gym for a workout, and you just want a nice easy alternative to the standard, this is a pretty good choice. 

You seriously need to read the directions and videos on how to use kettlebells. They're very heavy for their size, so you can twist or pull things that you had not intended if you aren't careful. And I'm a heck of a long way from an expert or even a full-functioning user...but I am kind of hooked. It's kind of fun to see how many times I can swing the thing before my heartrate soars. And the ache I used to get in my biceps is at least bearable now. And I'll tell you what else - there's nothing like a good kettlebell swinging session after a long hard day. You'll be just too tired to care! 

What Makes Twitter Fun

  The Twitter phenomena is fun to watch. People from all walks of life, who never would have crossed paths, do so on Twitter.

Twitter seems to me often to be kind of like the Sienfeld show - lots of fun but often about absolutely nothing. Sure, some folks Twitter to make money (or at least claim to), some folks Twitter to gather followers for their blogs or their website - all presumably also to make money. But others of us Twitter because it's just fun.

It's fun to see that my new friend Arkanady in Slovenia is having a parent teacher conference today. And I like knowing that my friend Colin passed the UK version of the CPA exam last week. It's nice to compare ways to work-out with those from distant lands. (I'm a huge Kettle bell fan. Turn outs folks all over the world already work out with Kettle bells. Who knew?) And it's nice to share successes with those who share a passion, even if there are thousands of miles between us.

Twitter makes the world even smaller.

With the protests in Iran, Twitter has taken on a new role. It is one of the few viable forms of communication for the Iranian protesters. Twitter may well be helping to shape the outcome of the election fall-out. Hard to imagine how Tienanmen Square might have gone if Twitter had been around 20 years ago.

Twitter also makes the inaccessible, accessible.

I know that Barbara Walters sat behind Lindsay Lohan on a plan in LA last week, and that Chris Cuomo is all fired up about journalist restrictions in the Middle East. I even know that Diddy and his son went to see the movie Pelham 123 last week. Do I need to know any of that - No. But is it fun...well actually, in small doses, and occasionally, it IS kind of fun to connect with otherwise inaccessible famous people. And if you know anything at all about Twitter, you know that if you're on, you'll know more about Ashton Kutcher than you ever imagined. 

I won't say that Twitter changed my life in a big way, but it's made it nicer, friendlier. Definitely a keeper.  

The Kindle

I have to say, when I first heard for the ebook reader with the newspaper-like pages (not backlit like a computer screen), it didn't sound so great to me. Kind of a gimmick, and besides, what books would be on it anyway. If you've read other blogs of mine, you know I read all the time - even when I shouldn't. So this ebook reader thing would really be convenient. And then I sort of got into the idea of carrying 1000 books in my one little device (that with the cover, kind of looks like a book itself).

Once I batted the concept around a while, I decided to check out the Kindle from Amazon. $400?? Are you kidding me? How could that cost justify? But the idea continued to grow on me. I'm an early adopter of new gagets anyway...and 1000 books in a little device that fits in my briefcase... then came the $50 price reduction. At $350 last June, I was in. I ordered it.

That little Kindle device has literally changed my life. Where I used to be a big reader, now I'm off the chart. I am pickier (if that's possible) about what I read, but because I can download book samples before I buy the book, I tend to buy less junk. Now, if I buy it, I read it. I like most anything that is well written, whether it's fiction - novels or poetry, non-fiction - biographies, business books, books on faith. I read them all. So for nearly a year, I've been a Kindle fan. I've bought 3 more Kindles in that time - all to give away. Now there are different styles and sizes of Kindles. I don't know much about that. I just like my little first generation Kindle with now over 300 books on it!

Here's my short list of best reading currently available on the Kindle. If you like good writing, you can't miss with any of these (in no particular order):

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle

The Book Thief

The Ha-Ha: A Novel

American Lion- Andrew Jackson

Outliers

Blink

Team of Rivals - The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln

The Help (see post below on this one)

Not Quite What I was Planning

How I Live Now

The Secret Life of Bees

Size 12 is Not Fat

The Memory of Running

The Year of Living Biblically

The Book Thief

A Walk in the Woods

Running with Scissors

When you are Engulfed in Flames

I hope, if you're a reader, and if any of these titles are new to you, that you'll find something that appeals. The Kindle this past year has enabled me to read titles I would definitely have missed otherwise. Was the Kindle a good investment? From a quality of life perspective, it was a perfect fit.

Ping

 Ping is such a cool word. It resonates well. It is one of those words that just the act of saying the word gives you a really good clue as to its meaning. Merriam-Webster defines the verb 'ping' as

1: to make a ping

2: to richochet with a ping

So it is actually just the sound of pronouncing the word that is the word itself. Well maybe...at least until computer guys latched on to the word. 'Ping' in an IT world means to send out a test signal and see if and how it is received. An IT guy who is having trouble with his modem might 'ping' a website to see if his internet connection is working.

In laboratory work, when a specimen is received, we take a little bit out of the specimen jar and prepare that little bit to be tested. That 'little bit' is called an aliquot. Kind of the same thing as a 'ping' but not nearly as cool a word.

The act of 'pinging' is kind of like dipping your toe in to see what happens. You test a little bit and then watch for the reaction.

I think the act of 'pinging' is underrated. The alternatives to 'pinging' (and yes, I am making up that verb tense) are:

1. Do nothing

2. Do it all without testing

A person close to me is scared to fly on an airplane. She so desperately wants to go overseas, but she just can't bring herself to fly. So she doesn't go anywhere that she can't drive. Ever. Why not try flying on a short jaunt for a weekend. Why tackle the fear of flying over an ocean..right out of the box? Fly from San Francisco to LA first. Dip your toe in. Ping it.

Some friends of ours  decided to sell their home in the midwest and move to the coast. They didn't try living there first, didn't do much investigation. Found much more expensive housing, lots of traffic, and a different way of life that they did not find appealing. A little ping would have saved lots of time and heartache.

I'm kind of a black or white person. I'm not fond of shades of gray. I want an absolute answer. That's nto a great personality trait, but it's true. Learning to ping more gives me more options...things are happier when I ping first. Took a while to learn that, but definitely true for me. Hope same for you.

Dave, I love you but...

One of the great gifts of current times  is the voice of reason over excesses - the voice that helps Americans learn how to spend well and not beyond our means. Dave Ramsey, though not the only provider of this service, is probably the best known and is growing like crazy in popularity.

Dave's message is simple - spend your wage - nothing else. Get out of debt. Relieve yourself of most of your biggest worries and cares by eliminating your debt and by building a cash reserve, and then working a plan - every month - to stay on track.

What Dave has done in creating a simple, easy to understand and follow message, is remarkable. He has lead thousands to better, smarter living. Our family benefited greatly from his message also.

Thanks Dave. I love what you've done, but...

For reasons well past my understanding, Dave's message is wrapped in cloak of Christian values. He is clear in his daily radio and TV broadcasts that there is only 'one true way and that is to walk with the Prince of Peace'. Hummm.........ok, I get that's what Dave believes. No problem there. But why infuse this Christian belief with his message of debt-free living? For all of the non-Christians, is his message now invalid? I don't get it. There are lots of things that I believe that I don't share with my business audience. It's not their business to know my personal beliefs. How is it possible that  the only possible intersection for happiness is Christianity and debt free living combined?

With the installation of this new political regime, Dave also devotes great stretches of time to review of his Republican agenda. Again - no problem at all with him believing whatever he wants to believe. I just don't get why he wants to alienate so much of his audience by expounding on these views so regularly and forcefully. I don't recall much of that sort of thing at all under the last administration, though I think it must be difficult to be a Republican and have to defend the previous administration, so maybe that makes sense.

Bottom line is this - when there's a good message, why cloud it with personal beliefs which will certainly alienate significant percentages of the audience?

Dave, I love you but...how about toning down the political rhetoric and staying on point with your excellent financial message?

Cursing Like Shakespeare

I really believe that an occassional all-out cursing sets the world right. If I'm frustrated with someone or something, I can often hold it together until a less visible moment, but then I like a good in-your-face cursing session to set the world right again.

Check out this link for some new, creative, more cerebral cursing choices. I definitely  got some good laughs  - hope the same for you.