There will be no post tonight. Sorry. 8-)

A Potpourri

STOP Universal Healthcare in the US...

"(2) Look at the DMV. Do you want government-run service in the ER? Your hospital WILL be affected, whether you're on a private or public plan.
"(3) Americans may wait months to receive care. Some patient's conditions will get worse."*

The Veterans Administration is a shining example of how our government handles patients needing healthcare. The VA Hospital I am most familiar is the Malcom Randall Medical Center in Gainesville, Florida. They operate no E.R. --too many people would die. Scheduled appointments are with your own assigned primary care provider once or twice a year, depending on the seriousness of any diagnosed condition. Notice they do not even refer to them as doctors. Many are physicians assistants.

These primary care "physicians" are in clinics scattered throughout the North Florida, South Georgia district, but you cannot get walk-in service if you get sick. You must drive to Gainesville, sign in at the Urgent Care desk and sit down and wait. Sometimes it is a two or three hour wait. If it is something that can be taken care of by prescription you go the the pharmacy and wait another hour or two. You are one of the lucky ones.

If you need to see a specialist, you go home and wait for a letter telling you when your appointment will be. This can be expected to be set for anywhere from two to six months down the road. How long do you suppose will be the wait when all citizens are in the program?

*from http://apps.facebook.com/causes/315632?m=a85d67ed

Stop sexual abuse towards children

While on the subject of righting wrongs and stopping that which should not have started in the first place... Child abuse should top the list. One deterrent is Amber Alert. Did you get an Amber Alert on your cell phone last night about 11PM? I didn't because my cell phone company doesn't offer it to people who do not have the internet on their phone. The larger cell phone companies are in the business of making money, not saving children. A friend of a friend got this message last night, "AMBER ALERT IN OSHAWA, FL - 3 YEAR OLD GIRL TAKEN BY MAN DRIVING NEWER SILVER TRUCK Ontario PLATE # 72B 381." I don't know where Oshawa is, but if I had been in that area I would still have been one of millions of Americans that did not get the message because cell phone companies are to cheap to install the necessary equipment to facilitate the use of Amber Alert for everyone. You can get online notification here: http://toolbar.inbox.com/lp/lp.aspx?tbid=80116&c=News&k=Amber%20Alerts&b=GGL_XT_ppc15_80116_05_02D_00_*GeoUSCA*_-Search-__amber%20alerts&s=awppc15&gclid=CM_cosC9s5wCFZZa2godsGXOnA

While posting links I have another one, since most of my readers come from facebook. This one speaks for itself. I will have to study html codes a little more to get links that work.

The 12 most annoying types of Facebookers

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/08/20/annoying.facebook.updaters/index.html

I found myself in the list in a couple of places. I will take up my causes in my blog not on facebook. I will continue to read all the status, posts, and comments as I have. I am not a "Lurker". People write them to be read, and they can filter who sees what.

Now for Some FUN

What color is a fresh blueberry on the inside?

Why does picking blackberries get a larger amount of stain on the hands than picking blueberries, yet eating blueberry pie will color the tongue more than blackberry pie?

Do you have your answers ready? Okay, lock them in and here we go!

Ripe, juicy blackberries do make a mess of the fingers that pick them. That is because the color that stains the fingers is in the juice. Not so with the blueberry. The blue color is almost entirely in the skin, locked within thick walled cells. In the process of cooking the color is released, staining everything it comes in contact with. This is also when the inside of the berry becomes blue. What color is it before it is cooked? A nondescript shade of light gray tinted slightly blue around the edges turning off white, then a very light beige as it approaches the center. The fresh juice is colorless.

I didn't think I ever had the blahs, but today sure seemed like it. Even the poem I turned to must have been written on a down day.

This miserable day sings songs of horror
and long its hours drag.
The boredom of each and every hour
Makes my heart sag.

I know I had days like that when I was young. I guess I can expect one now that I am old. Nothing sounds better than sleep so this is a good opportunity to catch up. Have a good night.

FACEBOOK ANON.

Hello, my name is Ron and I'm a recovering Facebo'holic. This is my first time on the bandwagon, and I want ta tell ya', it's tough. I quit cold turkey last night when I shut down and went to bed. I've been dry now for fourteen hours and only 5 of those were spent sleeping. I was up at 5 AM, and the first thing I wanted to do was to turn on my computer and just read - not write anything. But I want to tell ya' I left the laptop off, and I was doin' pretty good until I decided to come give my testimonial at F. Anon. Suddenly I had the deepest desire to click on my web browser and tell the world how I love them and crave the attention they return to me.

I told my inner self that no one even knows I am missing. All three hundred and forty or more of my friends have plenty of other friends to dialogue with and be preoccupied with so they won't even know I am not among them. I asked my Higher Power to make it clear to me that I am doing the right thing by breaking this addiction. Something inside of me keeps telling me it would be okay to take just one quick glance at what everyone is saying when I am not around. Boy, that one almost got me off the bandwagon! But I know my Higher Power is telling me I can live without the euphoria.

I get such an emotional high when I am writing my status, commenting on my friend's posts and status's (what would the plural of that be, stati?) You know when I am not writing on someone's wall I become so withdrawn and antisocial. Facebook really loosens me up and draws me out. I miss it so much I can taste it.

So I guess as someone who has just made his break away from that madhouse, what I need to know is what do I do with all the extra hours I used to spend with my buddies? And what do I do when all of a sudden I just have to talk to someone, but everyone who is somebody who understands my problem is online with all their friends. Is there no true support group for someone like me?

Well, as soon as I post this I will have to swing by fb and let everyone know what is going on. I expect that will be the end of the bandwagon for me. I need a safe house where there is no internet to pull me down. And someone there with me when I just want to grab a keyboard and peck away. Help me through the tough times, will ya?

Oh well, I guess there is really no help for a person like me. My only hope is that I can come to my senses before midnight and wake up sober in the morning.

* * * * * * * *

Thank you, Ron. My friend with the same name as I has similar problems with fb as I.
Perhaps someday there will be a fb Anon. Until then, we struggle. Time to announce the link to this post. See you on fb!

ON POETRY

On Poetic Composition

Hum-de-dum,
Poems come.

                                              Hi-de-ho,
                                              Poems go.

Great poems pop into the brain in a flash.

                        By the time they are on paper they are nothing but trash.
                        Unless my pen is quick as a wink,
                        Writing down every thought that I think.

This was the next to the last poem in "My Poems, My Goodness!" written on the pages of the Lawyers Day Book. I was seventeen or eighteen by that time, and already aware I was having memory problems. Astute? I think not; I wasn't aware it would only get worse.

The last poem in the book needs an additional line, and its last line needs to be written with a word that rhymes. I really left it dangling, badly.

On the page headed the 106th Day I wrote two really wacky poems, one totally nonsense and the other with an attitude of conceit. (Let's just call it tongue-in-cheek. It wasn't and still isn't written about anyone in particular.)

Patriotism of a Sort

After hearing that Lincoln was dead,

                            And was shot in the back of the head,
                                    A man in a furry
                                    Rose up in a hurry,
                            But tired and went back to bed.

Limericks have a habit of becoming crass if you let them. That one was stupid.

My Contemporary

                                      You, I class as nutty.
                                      Your brain, I think, is putty!
                                      Whatever you think
                                      I know must stink,
                                      For your rhyme is lazier,
                                      Your poems crazier,
                                      And downright hazier,
                                      Than mine — I think.

At the bottom of the 81st Day there is a couplet, the last of my poems about poems.

True Confessions

Some things I write just shouldn't be.
Just turn the page and you shall see.

That completes the topic "On Poems" and gives me something to draw you back next time. That, however, is not the way I want to treat my readers. Those who like what they read here will return. Those who don't, won't. So I turn the page for you and give one last limerick.

There once was a preacher named Paul,

                        Who preached to the towns, large and small.
                               When they called him to Rome
                               He wished to go home,
                        But they took him there after all.

I can't actually recall what I didn't like about this limerick when I wrote it. Perhaps I thought it was sacrilegious to use Biblical names and places in secular poetry. If that was the case, I no longer have those inhibitions.

"What goes around comes around."

I have not been able to find the author of this familiar quotation. It certainly wasn't original in Justin Timberlake's song title of 2007. Going back a little further to Susan Roane (US management consultant, writer, in "Words of Women Quotations for Success," by Power Dynamics Publishing, 1997.) "They say, 'You can't give a smile away; it always comes back.' The same is true of a kind word or a conversation starter. What goes around, comes around." Again it is not original material.

It may be that no one knows. Said What? (http://www.saidwhat.co.uk/quotes/) declares it to be anonymous and no one gives estimates as to how long it has been in use. I can remember hearing it for the first time in the mid 1960's. The man who used it said it like he had been using it all his life.

Whatever meaning it held back then has been greatly increased with the advent of the internet. On the web things can literally go around the world and come back in seconds. Take a joke I read on the internet 5 or 6 years ago. It was anonymously written and had been around for some time before it came to me. I liked it and saved it, and now it is time for it to go around again:

      A man came barging into the room and with slurred speech said, "Doctor, I'm not feeling very good."
     "You've been drinking too much," the man in the white jacket replied. You need to get some good food and some hot coffee and you will feel better."
     "What kind of a Doctor's offish is dish?" the inebriated man asked.
     "It isn't a Doctor's office," the man in white answered. "This is a restaurant kitchen. I'm the chef."

Maybe if this goes around enough someone will rewrite it. Somehow it doesn't seem as funny this time.

Joke writing is a special writing skill that average writers like myself do not possess. Still, I have been compelled to try off an on. Once when I was making Chili I thought of something funny that would make a good joke. But the stove top was too hot and the chili needed constant stirring, so by the time it cooled a little I had forgotten the joke. If you had been in my kitchen that day and you like spicy hot chili, you would have loved mine. The joke you may not have cared for, it wasn't that hot.

Riddles should be easier to write, they are shorter right?

Why couldn't the Alzheimer's patient tell a good joke... No, forget that one.
What did one ostrich say to another at the South Pole?
"Whatever you do, don't stick your head in this white stuff... It will freeze your ears off!

Just remember, that was written late at night. So much for that.

Back to the subject at hand. Originally, I believe "What goes around comes around" was given as a cautionary statement. If you do something bad to someone, eventually someone is going to do something bad to you. However it is used freely to mean just about anything that can be passed along to another person.

Leaving the negative connotations, it can be a very positive thing. If you do good things for others, eventually someone is going to do something nice for you. And if someone does something nice for me, I should want to pass it along, and do something nice for someone else.

Such are the things that are being done for me in my house as I write. I already have a nice new roof on my house, replacing the one that hurricane Charlie tore loose. Now the ceilings are being replaced and the drywall at the base of the wall where a pipe broke. This is being done by people from LASER, the Lake And Sumpter (counties) Emergency Recovery. What has been going around has come around, and I am so thankful.

Good Night Poems

Facebook has been an occasional source of humor, which I have enjoyed writing and passing along through this blog as well. Today it has become a cause for concern. I wrote to myself and answered myself as well. And there in a public forum with as many as 300 possible witnesses. Can insanity be far behind? Sounds like a good lead for posting some limericks.

     There once was a man in a rage
          Who tore from his book every page.
            When he calmed down again
He killed his fat hen,
             And had chicken for dinner with sage.

When I read a good poem (and that limerick is my favorite of all time) I am inspired to write another, and this is no exception. Forgive my conceit — but it still remains my favorite after all these years. Between the time I wrote the next poem and before I could publish it here I had to break for something that rhymes with smack. May it not have the same effect on you.

                                    My fat cells are begging for food.
                                    What I tell them does me no good.
                                          "Why try?"
                                          Says I
                                    As I fill my stomach with food.


Sometimes everything that needs to be said will not fit into five lines. The next poem is not a limerick, though it begins in the limerick style. It has been titled, limericks often are not.

The Balloon Man

                                    There once was an old man of Whale
                                    Whose face grew increasingly pale.
                                    When he saw the light
                                    Of his terrible plight
                                    That ensued him one night
                                    When the wind blew him away in a gale.

Have you ever fallen asleep reading a bed-time story to a child? I just fell asleep posting this blog! Almost broke my neck!! Good night.

For the end of the day

Did someone say you can have your cake and eat it, too? You can have half and eat half of it, except where the refrigerator rules are first come first served, and in large families where cake never makes it to the refrigerator at all!

It isn't funny that food vanishes fast in families of six or more. (I would have made that five, just to get another "f", but I remember leftovers from five of us — both in the family I grew up in and when there were just three of my own four children.) With six there is always one with a hollow leg or a bottomless pit for a stomach. I seem to remember catch phrases like those pointed in my direction. Let me see, I had an athletic figure in those days until I hit fifty. I must have had a high rate of metabolism back then, but certainly not any longer.

At any rate this was about cake, and not food in general. I bought three pieces of cake from the bakery, a proceeded to prove I could eat half of one and still have my cake (half of it) tomorrow. Well, I still have two pieces for tomorrow. I ate the WHOLE THING!

Why is it the stomach feels so deprived so easily and the brain sympathizes with it so quickly? Enough about cake before the second piece disappears.

During dinner, I witnessed what I believed was a small miracle. I
watched the rain pour down in the side yard, with no sound of rain on the roof or dripping from the eves. Water dripped from the leaves of the two trees in the yard, but not from the one next to the house, the roof, or the bush next to the kitchen window. After ten minutes of this the sun shower was over and I went out to see the miracle close up.

A swath the width of my house was dry in the pavement of the street in front of me. The side yard was wet up to about five feet from the house. The roof was dry except for one corner. On the other side of the house everything was wet and some water still dripped from the eves. Did I fail to mention that the roofers were here today and ripped off the shingles? The bare sheeting was covered with roofing felt, but the new shingles were only on the front end of the house where it rained the hardest. The felt was dry! What an amazing God I (we) have.

About two thirds of the meals I fix are meatless, though I am not a vegetarian. I rarely have to think about getting my five fruits and vegetables what with my salads and soup teaming with them. But the thought just struck me tonight, "Can carrot cake count as a vegetable?" Enough, wandering mind! Write something worth while for a change!

Night stole upon me as I wrote this and I was surprised to look out and see dark windows staring back at me. Rather than end with an abrupt "good night", I turned to my Lawyers Day Book of My Poems. Day 108, an untitled poem (revised slightly) seems appropriate for a time like this.

A Poem For the End of the Day

                                      Forcing thought, thinking right,
                                      Makes me mentally scream.
                                      Writing,
                                      Fighting,
                                      Fluid thoughts flow in a stream
                                      Through my head — what a plight!

                                      Think, O mind, thoughts aright
                                      For the sun is sinking low.
                                      Nothing can last forever,
                                      I know that this is so —
                                      In this life at least —
                                      Where day must turn to night.

What Direction, America?

Family Life Post 8/6/09
Dennis Rainey: " I'm enjoying my first cup of Rwandan coffee and thinking about a book I'm reading on the capture of Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi war criminal who exterminated a million Jews. I am wondering what went wrong in his life as a young man...he grew up in a Protestant home. Same could be asked for the entire country of Germany."

Ronald A. Richardson: ~ "Eichmann and the German people were duped and deceived by Satan's lies. Germany was by far a more "Christian" nation in the early 1900's than they are today. Satan works hardest where one is the weakest. Germany's weakness was its pride in its origins, race, and heritage. The educational system was greater than it ever had been, and one man saw this and shaped a whole generation, raised on his belief in the master race.

"Makes me stop to wonder where our nation is headed. Is the phrase, "Proud to be an American" really how we should feel about our nation?

"Our schools are the battleground for the minds of our youth, and our schools in many cases are controlled by the wrong people, people with an agenda.

"Where this is all leading I am not sure, but I am quite certain it is in a direction I don't want to go."

______________________________________________________

I kept my comments short for facebook readers. There is so much more to be said about our nation and our schools, I don't know where to begin. It looks as if we have lost the battle in some areas and are going down in others fast. Soon we will be past the point of no return, and we don't begin to know what that will bring. Will there come a time when Christians no longer have a say in government or how the schools are run? May it never happen, but we will need to stay on our toes in every area to prevent it.