Honor

“The shortest and surest way to live with honor in the world is to be in reality what we would appear to be; all human virtues increase and strengthen themselves by the practice and experience of them.”  ---- Socrates

Adjustments.....

“For everything you have missed, you have gained something else, and for everything you gain, you lose something else.” ---- Ralph Waldo Emerson

And so the world keeps turning.

Things change, whether we want them to or not.

Some things we change, some things change us.

But there is no neutral, no pause button.

Change is constant, some moving us forward, some moving us back, but never letting us remain inert.

With change comes collateral damage and collateral benefits.

Rarely are the details of either known in advance.

In my life I've chosen to enthusiastically embrace whatever change is offered, with little but positive results.

Not all can, depending on their risk tolerance and acceptance.

But most wish they could.

Even with the collateral damage it can cause.

I've rarely been disappointed.

"Most people live lives of quiet desperation in prisons of their own making." ---- Rob Kelch

“All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another.” ---- Anatole France

Thought for the day.... every day.

“He who refuses to embrace a unique opportunity loses the prize as surely as if he had failed.”
--- William James

BP - "Barack's Problem"

Ask almost anyone in the United States today what BP stands for, and they'll quickly answer "the folks who created the oil spill in the Gulf".

That's certainly the high profile, media driven answer.

And BP in that sense certainly deserves the notoriety for their inept handling of the entire catastrophe.

But there is another BP that's equally important right now, and that's the Bully Pulpit.

That special place that goes with the Presidency where a capable leader can influence public policy, public opinion, and public confidence.

A place where a true leader can show real leadership without resorting to memos, directives, decrees, and other subterfuges that are only marginally effective out of the public eye.

The O-man has no Bully Pulpit.

Certainly the office still has the potential, but the man has no capability in that environment.

He's so detached from the overall feeling in the country, so ideologically distant from the center of the nation's psyche, that he can't use the Bully Pulpit because no one believes what he says when it comes to issues facing them in their daily lives.

You don't get Bully Pulpit credibility on being angry about the oil spill when you admit you have never spoken to the CEO of the company that did the spill.

You don't get Bully Pulpit credibility on feeling outraged about fishermen and shrimpers being cost their livelihoods by placing a moratorium on new drilling operations and putting thousands in the petroleum industry in the same markets out of work.

The Bully Pulpit can be highly effective in moving a country through crisis, in motivating people to take real action, in uplifting the national attitude.

John Kennedy used it well during the Cuban missle crisis.

Winston Churchill used it effectively in Britain during World War II.

Lyndon Johnson used it effectively during the civil rights struggle.

And Ronald Reagan used it often and well during the cold war, effectively using it to bring down the Berlin wall, and with it, the Soviet Union.

But without credibility, without empathy with the American people, without some kind of common touch, don't expect much from the O-man.

Because BP, the oil company, is only one of his BP problems.

Toilet-Discrimination Bill Gets House Hearing, While Immigration and Jobs Wait In Line

A bill providing “restroom gender parity” in federal buildings--mandating that the number of toilets for women would need to equal or exceed the number of toilets for men--is getting serious, bipartisan consideration in Congress.

This at a time when, by the O-man's own admission, there is no shortage of crises and when many Americans are pressing Congress to do something about jobs, immigration, and other pressing matters.

The Restroom Gender Parity in Federal Buildings Act received a full committee hearing on May 12, complete with introductory remarks by lawmakers and testimony from witnesses.

I wish I was kidding.

Rep. Darryl Issa of California, the ranking Republican on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, noted the importance of the hearing process – not to mention the potty parity bill itself:

“As people seldom realize, in Congress, in order to move a piece of legislation, we hold hearings."

"In order to understand the final and best form of that legislation, we hold hearings."

"I think this is no exception,” said Issa, who described the bill as laudable and essential.

The bill’s sponsor, Committee Chairman Rep. Edolphus Towns (D-N.Y.), outlined both the problem and his proposed solution:

“This is not a minor issue,” Towns said. “Women are often forced to wait in long lines to use public restrooms or walk further to find a restroom while men rarely have the same problem.”
 
“Throughout history, public restrooms have been the site of institutional discrimination by race, physical (disability) and gender,” Towns said.
 
"While there have been great strides in dealing with race and physical disability, public restroom facilities for women still lag behind those of men," he said.


“Today women still lack equal access to restrooms in many places of employment,” Towns said.

“The fact that many federal buildings do no provide as many restrooms facilities for woman as they do for men is simply unfair. It is time for that to change,” Rep. Towns said.

The bill requires all new federal buildings and newly renovated federal buildings to have at least the same number of toilets for women as are provided for men.

According to the language of H.R. 4869, “the number of toilets in women’s restrooms will equal or exceed the number of toilets (including urinals) in men’s restrooms.”



When it was introduced in March, H.R. 4869 generated questions in some quarters about Congress spending time on toilets instead of addressing more pressing issues of the day.

The OldTimer thinks Congress better get their collective heads out of their asses and start addressing the real problems facing our country before nobody has a pot to piss in, men or women.

Simple.

Everyone is responsible for the child they bring into this world.

It doesn’t matter if was planned, unplanned, or even a child through adoption.

Every child has a right to be raised in a safe environment, and to be provided basic necessities including financial support, even if one of the parents are not around.

Today, approximately 30 million children in the USA are owed more than $41 billion in unpaid child support, according to estimates by the Association for the Enforcement of Child Support (ACES).

Unpaid child support is one of the largest debts in this country.

While millions in tax dollars goes to help support children and provide medical care, a parent is still ultimately responsible, not the government.

Just because one parent has decided to move on and leave a child either before or after birth doesn't get them a free pass on their responsibilities.

Granted, some child support assessments can be unfair.

But the remedy for that is not to stop paying, but rather use the court process to have the numbers adjusted.

So here's my plan: pay up, or face mandatory castration.

If you've got the balls to bail on your kid, you should have them cut off.

Period.

BP's Oil Spill Isn't....

As America suffers it's most damaging ecological disaster yet, most are calling it BP's oil spill.

It's not.

It doesn't belong to any one company, any one government, any one nation.

It's a global disaster with global impacts.

Ocean currents will eventually mean that some part of this disaster will be spread to every coastline worldwide.

Depending on time, those impacts may or may not be severe.

Exxon spent years and billions of dollars cleaning up after the Valdez.

They had booms and skimmers and mats.

They hired whole armies of people to steam clean rocks and wash birds.

They rented any boat that would float, hired everyone who applied, threw money around like crazy.

They recovered 14% of the oil.

14%.

Later, they privately admitted that much of their work was pointless and was only designed to keep money flowing into the pockets of those most affected, trying to gain a little respect and provide some compassion.

The only cure for an oil spill is time.

Oil is organic and eventually, it will break down.

Microbes will eat some of it, some will evaporate, the rest will dissipate.

Over the next few years, fisherman will be paid not to fish, billions will be handed out.

Gradually, things will get better.

Every five years or so, some news team will go to the Gulf and turn over rocks, looking for oil.

They'll find some.

Things will get better but there isn't a hell of a lot more that can be done.
 
Only time.
 
But first, we have to stop the flow.
 
When the world faces natural or ecological disasters, the USA is usually first on the scene, passing out money, technology, manpower.
 
Where is the rest of the world now?
 
I'm sure they will be there when some of this oil washes up on their shores, demanding money from the USA.
 
 
“Public calamity is a mighty leveler.”  ---- Edmund Burke

So.......

With AlGore and Tipper getting a divorce, who gets custody of the Internet?