Things Nobody Wants To Think About

I heard difficult news from a number of people this week and it reminded me of some things we need to think about before we are too preoccupied to think about them.

There are some choices we might want to make before we can’t make them. I am talking about death and dying. An uncomfortable subject for most people.

Writer Robert Test did his thinking and this is what he wrote:

 “After I die, don't call it my deathbed. Let it be called the bed of life."

 Give my sight to the man who has never seen a sunrise. Give my heart to the person who has nothing, but endless days of pain. Give my blood to the teenager who was pulled from the wreckage of his car so that he may live to see his grandchildren play.  Take my bones, every muscle fiber, every nerve and try to find a way to make a crippled child walk."

Burn the rest and scatter the ashes to the wind to help the flowers grow.

If you must bury something, bury my faults, my weaknesses and my prejudices against my fellow man.

If by chance you wish to remember me, do it with a kind deed or a word to someone who needs you. If you do all I have asked, I will live forever."

Thank you Robert Test.

Herman Cain Again!

Mr. Cain, it is time to stop the charade.

This is the third time I have written about the alleged assignations of GOP Presidential candidate Herman Cain.

This time it is a Georgia woman who alleges a 13-year affair with Mr. Cain.

I don’t need to go into the details in this post; you can do that for yourself if that is of interest to you.

What I find difficult to accept is that Mr. Cain continues to call all of these allegations political skullduggery.

Ginger White said her relationship with Cain was simple. It was consenting and it was fun. She said she decided to go public because she felt sorry for the other women who were being demonized because of their sexual harassment charges.

I don’t know if any of the allegations with the other four women or Ms. White are true. I don’t care.

I do care that Mr. Cain wants to be my president. There are now too many unknowns for me to support him. There are too many suspicious relationships for me to ignore as “dirty politics.” There are too many denials from Mr. Cain for me to ignore. Character is the issue and that’s the criteria for me.

Mr. Cain it is time for you to end your quest to be president. You have two choices. You can continue to speak your innocence and many will support you in that endeavor and join you in the fight for the nomination. Or you can withdraw without admitting any culpability.

Only your heart will know what’s true.

Our hearts and quest for sustainable leadership will look elsewhere.

Emerson's Essay

I hope everybody had a happy Thanksgiving. I did with family and grand children.

Here is something a few of you might be interested in getting. I recently recorded an essay written by Ralph Waldo Emerson. It was part of his lecture series in the late 1800’s. It’s called, The Uses of Great Men.”

Emerson uses the word “men” in this case to refer to all of humankind.

His text is convoluted and a bit foreign to our modern declarative ear, but it has always been one of my favorite essays of Emerson.

My friend, Brett Barry of Silver Hollow Audio did the recording and is offering it on his commercial website, www.silverhollowaudio.com. It will cost you about three bucks to download. It runs about 49-minutes.

I had fun doing it. If you get it please let me know what you think. Not of me reading it, although you may do so if you choose, but of what Emerson is saying.

Driving Home

I'm driving home from family time in Boston. This blog will resume on Monday. Have a great weekend.

RGS

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours.

RGS

JFK's Assassination

November 22, 1963. Forty-eight years ago yesterday. For those of us who were alive then it does not seem possible that this kind of time has passed and so quickly. For those who were born after Kennedy was killed it was an historic event, for me it is a personal history.

There is a significant psychological difference between someone’s personal and professional history and what is historic for another.

I was a college student when John F. Kennedy ran for the presidency and I was a young journalist when he was assassinated. I was news director for a radio station in Syracuse, New York. I was also associated with a television station and needless to say the focus for days was on the assassination.

In those days no one had the technological abilities we have today to get an instant picture or a report from the scene. To get a live picture from Dallas took time and telephone landlines. It was not easy.

The late Walter Cronkite of CBS did most of his reporting from what was called a flash studio. There was a stationary camera in a small studio and the camera was always hot; ready to go if something major warranted breaking into regular programming.

Dan Rather was a local crime reporter for the CBS affiliate in Dallas. Through his local contacts he confirmed to the CBS network that the President was dead. The wire services, very prominent at the time, also reported and confirmed his death.

NBC News had David Brinkley and Chet Huntley. ABC, a young fledgling network at the time, had Murphy Martin and I believe Howard K. Smith.

It was a time of great turmoil and fear. It was, to use only half of Dickens’s opening line in a Tale of Two Cities, “it was the worst of times. Speculation was rampant with conspiracies and rumors.

Today, television outlets have the ability to get a picture from just about any spot on the globe and to do so quickly; a feat unheard of 48-years ago. In many ways I’m not sure which is better, instantaneous reportage and unbridled analysis or dogged reporting skills with proper and thoughtful analysis.

I will think about this, but not for very long.

Failure!

Shame! Shame! Shame! Shame on the congressional “super” committee. They were called to do a hard job and they failed.

They failed because they put party before our country.

 They failed because they put themselves before the American people.

 They failed because not one of them understands the global ramifications of their failure because they are snuggled into an elitist congressional comfort that protects them from their failure.

The public pillory should be brought back just for these twelve ineffectual, cowardly and politically  selfish members of congress.

You should know their names:

In the Senate:

Max Baucus, John Kerry, Jon Kyl, Patty Murray, Rob Portman, Patrick Toomey.

In the House:

Xavier Becerra, Dave Camp, James Clyburn, Jeb Hensarling, Fred Upton and Chris Van Hollen.

Know their names, commit them to memory and if they are in your sphere of influence do not vote for them when they are up for re-election.

I am ashamed of congress and these congressmen and women. The rest of us know how to make the hard decisions of life because we make them everyday. We cut here and we cut there to make ends meet.

 

There needs to be a radical change in Washington, a radical about face from all representatives, including President Obama. He needs to step up and be an active leader for the greater good of our country, not for the partisan good, but for the greater good of all of us.

Finger pointing and verbal blame must cease. Congress you are the problem and we the people have the solution.