Incoming Checks

Do you ever get checks in the mail from businesses of people who claim you overpaid for their service? I just got three more of them and it makes me wonder if my memory is slipping or if I am even stupider than i thought I was. Why else would I overpay so much?

One of the checks is from my mortgage company, an escrow excess (about $120). It seems that they charged me more than they should have for escrow. But how come I didn't known that before they sent me the check? They could have not sent me the money and I would never have known. Hmmmmm That's evidence of the stupidity, rather than memory, reason for me getting those checks. I think I prefer being stupid to losing memory because I can do something about stupidity.

The second check I received this week was from a dermatologist daughter Jane sees for an acne problem on her back. Each time I pay $25 and the insurance pays the balance of the office charge. I am sure I paid that co payment, but they claim I didn't. This could mean I am not stupid as I thought above, but that I have a failing memory. If that is the case I hope I can remember more important "stuff' like to zip up. First you forget names, then faces, then to zip up, and then to zip down. AHHHHHHH I refuse to check my records to see if I forgot to make the co payment. It's too much of a discovery for me.

That third check that was sent to me is from an insurance company and is in the tiny amount of $30. I have no idea why I go that amount and this could prove I am both stupid and forgetful. I could probably call them and ask why they sent the check but who wants to question money that has fallen from the sky. It's just $30 and I have already established I am both stupid and have no memory. If I phone and ask them and ask I may discover another of my flaws. Or they may say it is their mistake and take back the money.

When I was young many years ago I once opened a monthly bank checking account statement I received in the mail and found almost 1 million dollars had been deposited into it. My balance went from a few thousand to about a million. I was sort of happy. But I didn't put a million dollars in it. Knowing that spending any of that money would be a criminal offense I called the bank and casually asked if my statement was correct. They told me that my account number was one number from a bigger account and that the bank mistakenly transposed the account balances. At that point I was out of a million dollars.

But it proved that banks an also be stupid and forgetful. It's reassuring to me as I look at those three mystery checks.

Loss Of Faith

There seems to be loss of faith in institutions in this country, particularly in government. I suspect the same is happening in most other places as well. The latest faith breech here is the scandal involving the Secret Service agents who are employed to protect public officials from harm or attack, as in the President and other elected officials. A group of Secret Service agents who were in the nation of Columbia to set up security details for President Obama's visit, instead consorted with a number of Colombian prostitutes in and outside of their hotel.

Fortunately the hookers were just that and not agents of terrorists or some other outsider who might want security information from the agents in order to harm the president. Apparently, none of the prostitutes were attempting to blackmail the horny agents either. But several of the ladies complained about the agents not paying for the sex, and that broke the news story in the media.

This latest breakdown in government only makes people feel that they have no faith in their government and in many other of today's important institutions. Might this decade become the decade of cynicism? Scandal after scandal, from drug aided cheating athletes in sports to politicians caught with their pants down in the wrong places, to sex scandals in the Catholic Church, may have begun to wear down the faith citizens have in their once favored institutions.

What is going on with the adults who are elected or appointed to responsible positions? They are behaving like children. and in reaction, we are either winking and saying, "boys will be boys" or are simply losing faith in those institutions that we need to serve us. This is an age when being the bad boy is tolerated by many and treasured by more than a few. Being a responsible adult today is no longer the trend, but the exception. Is there a general reluctance in our society today to be mature? Is it now cool to act childishly and in negative ways? Who is the grown-up today?

The public today has lost faith in much of the formal institutions, in politics, in sports, in corporations, in the media they once respected and trusted to report truth but now reports more scandal and gossip. Ahhhhhhhhh! How can one have faith anymore in the core institutions of society? You tell me.

 

DOGTV

I have long uttered the popular refrain about television "going to the dogs". Uh, I was ranting metaphorically but now can say it literally. DOGTV has debuted in California (it belongs no where else?) and is about to go national in the U.S. and soon after go on line. The DOGTV network says it's mission is to "offer a promise not our beloved best friends that they should never again feel alone."

It claims to be a "scientifically developed and Pup approved' television station Hmmmm But I never heard of a lonely dog or a lonely dog that needs the boob tube. Have you? Surely, TV has killed human language skills, but it's hard to believe we now communicate on the same level as Fido. However, though I refuse to bark about it, some of those human cell phone addicts do seem to snarl and woof into their phones from time to time. Maybe they also need a DOGTV app for their cells.

DOGTV is advertising free and is aimed at "stay-at-home dogs". Here is a link to the DOGTV mission statement that explains it fully. But I think it defies human imagination that humans will pay for and expect alleged dog TV shows to appeal to canines. http://dogtv.com/Page/watchdogtv

Supposedly, the 24 hour a day cable DOGTV has the sound, color and camera angles just right for dogs. Well, if they would just show Reality TV shows I think they might achieve the same affect for the doggies. I doubt there is much difference between the two. And, yes, the actors on dog TV are mostly other dogs who act more with more civility than Snookie or the Kardashian brood (but then what self respecting animal doesn't).

DOGTV is a kind of role model for canines, a "new breed" of TV!. In the California city of Escondido, the Human Society dog shelter mounted TV's at the local kennel and has reported a major improvement in all the dogs who watch. (I guess there is no dog porno programming to corrupt them?) I wonder why TV seems to do the opposite to human kids? Someone should switch the dog shows to the kid network and the children's' shows to DOGTV and see what happens to both the dogs and the human kids. It might be a natural anyway, given so many small children bite each other like dogs.

Sedating dogs with TV maybe be about what sedating kids with TV has become, a baby sitting device. Gee...I hope the world's dogs are not damaged as much by DOGTV as human kids have been by watching human TV.

Country's Smallest

There's a town located almost equidistant between Cheyenne and Laramie in southeast Wyoming that is in the news. That's because the smallest town in the United States, Buford, Wyoming, was sold at auction for $900,000 on Thursday to an unidentified man from Vietnam. I passed by that one man town when I drove from New Orleans to Portland about almost two years ago (Buford looks like it is located on the surface of the moon) and an fascinated by what the new owner will do with it. Here's why!

The one man town of Buford consists of a gas station and convenience store, a schoolhouse from 1905, a cabin, a garage, 10 acres, and a three bedroom home located at 8,000 feet altitude. Temperatures are more often freezing and the mountain side is bare scrubbed rather than scenic. Too, Buford overlooks the trucks and cars on the nearby interstate 80 (which is where I saw Buford on my drive) on one side and the distant snow capped mountains in Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado on the other side.

Don Sammons is the seller and he has lived in Buford for 20 years. But now he wants or move away, resign as mayor and write a book about his experiences in Buford. At one time in the late 1800's Buford had 2000 residents because it was situated along the transcontinental railroad. But the railroad was rerouted and Buford slowly died. Scattered around Buford are big ranches which give the residents a reason to live in an isolated and severe part of the U.S.

I was struck at how barren the area is when I drive across it and wondered why anyone would want to live there. The buyer just said he "wanted a piece of America". Odd. For $900,000 he could have gotten a nicer piece. I doubt he can turn Buford into a tourist town because the area is extremely remote So what can the new Buford Owner do? He has sovereignty over the area and can do anything with it that doesn't violate the laws of the state of Wyoming. Hmmm Let's see...maybe the new owner will....

* Rename it 'Saigon West'
* Convert the town into a brothel
* Make it a rest home for has been reality TV performers
* Probably become very proficient at playing solitaire
* Never see his mother-in-law again
* Open a Pho soup restaurant....uh....no deliveries for 'BuPHOrd Soup'
* Can you imagine it? 'Disney World Wyoming'
* Make it the World's smallest Wal mart
* Finally, build a house arrest where Lindsay Lohan can keep out of trouble

Killer Coke?

If one believes reports from New Zealand, he coke problem seems to be a growing one. There was quite a shocking death the other day attributed to ingesting too much coke. Experts there say that a stay at home mom New Zealand woman, Natasha Harris, had a 2 gallon a day coke habit may have been the cause of he death. But wait! I'm not writing about cocaine. It's Coca Cola that did her in.

Apparently drinking 2 gallons of coke a day will kill you as fast as those burgers chips and other "bad foods" we eat and enjoy. But then, Coke says in response to Nastasha's death that even if we drink two gallons a day of water it would probably kill just as fast. As we unhealthy eaters like to note, eating or drinking too much of anything is what kills. It's not the Coca cola that is bad (beyond being empty calories). It's the addiction to it. The suspicion in Natasha's death is that she had a heart attack brought on by her low potassium level, caused by the excessive intake of coke and by her poor over all nutrition that was created by her diet of coke and little else.

I wonder how Natasha became that addicted to coke. But then, she reportedly smoked about 30 cigarettes a day as well. It makes me wonder if she had substituted water, or juice or anything else for the gallons of Coke, would she also have died. Her general health was so poor, maybe the Coke is innocent of the deathly charges. The kidneys ability to process liquids of any sort is limited, which explains why so many dehydrated humans people have died from drinking too much water. Is the story just an assault on Coca Cola? I doubt many will drink Coke at the rate Natsaha did.

Now we will have the food police warn us about the evils of soft drinks, the high corn fructose that sweeten them, the phosphoric acid contained in them. Hmmmm Natasha also had 8 kids! Maybe too many kids kill too. Or perhaps it was suicide. If I had 8 kids, smoked 30 cigarettes a day and drank 2 gallons a day of Coke I would be suicidal.

Sounds to me it was more a case of her dreary life killing her than sipping the Coca Cola.

My Baby Or My Stuff?

I have a bizarre New Orleans crime report for you. It's so strange that I attached the link to it here, since it is almost beyond recounting. Click below, read the article and look at the face if the "suspect". I want to see if you have similar impressions and disgust as I. Ok, go to it now...I will wait for you to come back....
http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2012/04/twist_in_case_of_woman_accused.html

Can you believe it? Looking at the face of suspect Charbaney (well, at least the name is interesting, if not the disgusting person to whom it is attached) I see a microcosm of some of the worst element in society. That and the look of stupidity or, perhaps drug addiction, might explain why that thief robs upscale baby clothing stores and after being caught leaves her own baby behind as she flees the police.

Let me guess that Charbaney fits the most common profile of a thief. I guess the following: has an extensive criminal record, she is from a single parent family, was ignored or abused, had few or no proper role models from which to learn right from wrong, is uneducated, has no employment but lives modestly off "Obama stuff" (the endless entitlements the "poor" get from a collection of 128 federal anti poverty programs that require nothing more from the recipient than to hold out the hand and take in the gifts), is or has been a drug users, has an illegitimate child or children, expects "the government" to provider her with all of life's necessities and wants, has one or more children who have already learned the welfare lifestyle and intends to live life under that code... Ok I am guessing about Charbaney, but I would bet she fits all or most of that profile.

My point is that the number of Charbaneys' out there are growing as the world becomes more and more a huge welfare state. In a welfare state, all members of society are forced to give to certain other individuals, groups or businesses all on an arbitrary basis (though most of the time it is the basis of politicians giving "free stuff" in return for votes to keep them in office). These entitlements most often come in the form of free benefits such as health care, housing, food etc. to "the poor" (now defined as a growing and hardly impoverished mass). The esteemed CATO Institute in a major study on the effect of welfare on the individual and society had quite a few conclusions. Here are a few of them.

-The value of the full package of welfare benefits for a typical recipient in each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia exceeds the poverty level. Because welfare benefits are tax-free, their dollar value is often greater than the amount of take home income a worker would have left after paying taxes on an equivalent pretax income.
-In 40 states welfare pays more than an $8.00 an hour job. In 17 states the welfare package is more generous than a $10.00 an hour job.
-Welfare benefits are especially generous in large cities. Welfare provides the equivalent of an hourly pretax wage of $14.75 in New York City, $12.45 in Philadelphia, $11.35 in Baltimore, and $10.90 in Detroit. For the hard core welfare recipient, the value of the full range of welfare benefits substantially exceeds the amount the recipient could earn in an entry level job. As a result, recipients are likely to choose welfare over work, thus increasing long term dependence.

I find Charbaney and those like her to be disgusting human beings, people who burden society and impair it their entire lives, and individuals to some degree created by the welfare mentality that has captured the world. But having written that, I find even greater disgust for we who allow our governments to give others too much "free stuff" rather than helping those in need with real programs that require responsibility and restitution for the gifts received from society.

New Airline Fees

I see those carry on bags diminishing.... Like Spirit Airline, Allegiant  Airline announced it will start charging passengers for carry-on luggage when flying the airline. Just like Sprint, it will allow customers to bring on one personal item free of charge, but only if those items can fit under the seat in front them. Strange... Bags that must be put in overhead storage bins will cost $35 if not reserved in advance (will offer a discounted rate if purchased online in advance). Are they kidding?
Checked bags cost airlines a small amount in labor ( which most feel is and should be a part of the ticket price, given that passengers must take luggage when they fly) and baggage handling infrastructure. A carry on cost them not much just some fuel burning extra weight   Do airlines really expect people to travel without any luggage at all? I know they want to make money, but small airlines like those two seem to me short-sighted in gouging that way. Surely, it will mean a loss of those customers who have an alternative airline they may flay on that route.

When airlines or any other business needs more revenue they should raise the prices of the commodity bought ( in this case the airline ticket itself) not create ancillary fees. They are charging crazy fees now to cover increased fuel costs.  But that increase is already  covered under the additional fuel surcharge that has been imposed on each ticket sold. So the carry-on fees and the like are charged to generate revenue that goes directly to stockholders. What's next, a  $10 oxygen mask maintenance fee? How about some more suggestions for the fee-crazy airlines. They could charge a fee for wearing clothes, hairy passengers could pay for hair while the bald ones pay nothing,  a small seat belt fee, rest rooms can be coin operated .

Hmmmm Maybe the traveler who pays these ridiculous fees might also find out the hotel room he checks into has added a "bed fee" of $35. And surely his taxi driver should charge a fuel surplus fee of at least $5. That restaurant where the traveler has breakfast will learn from Allegaint  that exporting money is fun and will charge him or her a few dollars to use the restaurant bathroom.
Wait! Maybe I should charge you  for entering my mail box with your messages.  I could call it a "proof of insanity fee".

Weird Divorce

The subject of divorce is one many of us are qualified to comment on. I am one of the majority of  people in the industrial world who hs been married and divorced. But in the United States it's relatively easy to find a reason to divorce a spouse. The no fault divorce here means you don't have to have a reason other than "I've had enough".  But I saw an article about English divorce laws that was funny and thought it was worth relating and commenting on.  Because England does not have a no-fault divorce law, couples who wish to separate are coming up with some odd reasons for divorce...really odd ones.

A list of a few of them that was published  in The Times of London makes me feel sorry for both the husband and wife in each case.  One man complained his wife "would without justification flirt with any builder or tradesman, inappropriately touching them and declaring that she could not stop herself." Another man "insisted that his pet tarantula, Timmy, slept in a glass case next to the matrimonial bed," even though his wife requested "that Timmy sleep elsewhere." Then there is the husband told divorce lawyer Vanessa Lloyd Platt that his wife had maliciously and repeatedly served him tuna casserole, his least favorite dish.  Lawyer Platt advised him to come up with a better reason for the divorce and to start eating out more.,  And then there was the "Klingon"  is the fault divorce petition. One guy  who watches way too many Star Trek episodes  told his wife that she had to speak and dress as a Klingon. She probably should have skipped divorce court and just zapped him with her taser gun.

Under current British law, divorces can only be granted under one of five categories, which include adultery and abandonment. About half of all divorces filed in England fall under another category called "unreasonable behavior"........... as in the Tuna casserole assault story. In the U.S divorce is not only easier but far more often amiable, even friendly. But British divorce  procedure could be even crazier than it is.  A Saudi man, for example, recently used a shopping mall's loudspeaker to announce his intention to divorce his wife..while she had their three children along with her in the mall. In Israel, one man, Meir Gorodetzki, was sent to prison by the court for refusing to give his wife a divorce. And Israel's supreme rabbinical court of appeals upheld a ruling to keep a man imprisoned until he grants his wife a bill of divorce. He still sits in prison today.

Wow! I knew marriage as an institution was under assault, but who knew the once serious divorce matter has become so bizarre and almost fun. Maybe I should get married again just to have one of those kinds of divorces.

Only In Louisiana

I still keep in touch about my former city, New Orleans and my home state, Louisiana via the internet. I think one ever completely moves away anymore, because the internet provides even the daily newspaper of the former residence with which to keep ties. I read news from new Orleans every day. I even have a favored radio station from New Orleans that is book marked. Apparently, the craziness didn't all leave New Orleans when I left, because one of those only in New Orleans or Louisiana stories showed up today.

It seems there was a tourist attack in a small town about 100 kl  outside the New Orleans near baton Rouge (the state capital).  But this one is an attack of a different type. Authorities say a 6 foot alligator showed up at the front door of a Super 8 Motel in Port Allen, Louisiana and bit a guest. Haha How does one explain to his rio her medical insurance provider that happened? West Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff Mike Cazes said his office got a 911 call about the alligator attack. Alligator attacks are not uncommon when people handle or hunt gators. They are all over the Southern Louisiana area in swamps, bayous, along rivers, in forests, even in some house subdivisions. There is even an alligator hunting season due to the huge number of them.
When I live in the city I can remember quite a few residents walking into their front or back yard and seeing  an alligator roaming. The procedure is to call the police who send an alligator hunter from the area Animal Control office to capture and then release the gator in the nearest swamp. Too most of the time the only thing an alligator attacks (and sometimes swallows) is a cat or dog, though a few children have been attacked while playing.

But this tourist decided to be a hero and apprehend the gator himself. There are yet no reports of his having had too many drinks of his favorite alcoholic libation as a fortification before trying. Matt Marszal, the motel's front desk clerk, said the gator bit the the motel guest as he tried to catch it before Animal Control workers showed up. The man was taken to the hospital with all. Give him credit though. Most tourists want the ambiance of the local sights on film as they snap pictures, but that fellow took it to another level.

Once Animal Control workers arrived, he said the gator was subdued within 5 minutes....which proves you should never wrestle a gator yourself. Oh well. I guess the Alligator was upset they wouldn't rent him a Room

What Are They Reporting?

Here is an actual front page headline in the national newspaper that leads all others in total circulation- 'Cheating husbands like Toyotas, wives crave Hondas'. Haha I'm not kidding that such stupidity is a front page headline. It's just one of many like that in newspapers everywhere. I think it reflects the growing frivolous nature of people as to what should be important to know and what should not be. Silly stories about cheaters preferring Toyotas belong on the pages of non serious journals, not mainstream media newspapers. (By the way, the article said cheating women preferred Hondas....It's a bad day for Japan, I guess)

Yes, the article is as crazy as the headline. I read it and wasn't informed about anything anyone would need to know. I wonder what kind of "survey" it was, why it was conducted and if Toyota is happy to know it is the cheater car...or something. Hmmm What would the world do without this information? I would love to find out. But the question is why do media outlets report the insignificant as if it were the important? I think it's because people want to be entertained far more than they want to be informed.

In reaction to a less educated and caring public, the mainstream news mediums that are allegedly reporting news instead give us opinion, slant, the insignificant, the bizarre anything to entertain or shake our emotions. It's tantamount to a math professor deciding to eliminate from the syllabus all instruction to Differential Geometry because the students would not be able to understand it or be as entertained if studying it. So the media gives us sweet dessert as every course. No wonder so many of the public is so badly informed about those things that really mater to themselves and to society as a whole.

The media sees how many are enthralled with news of the latest dysfunctional celebrity or how willing it is to let a "Reality TV" contestant to be seen as someone we should admire....simple because they receive media coverage. It sees that the public isn't interested in the less exciting but more important, nuts and bolts of what makes society work. It is aware that silly sells and substance does not.

What does this tell us about the state of our society. When the fringe news mediums become mainstream and the mainstream dumb down to their level it indicates the people have spoken. And what they are saying is that it is better to be ignorant and uninformed than to be aware of what really matters. Uh, for the record..I don't have a Toyota.....

Most Boring Day Of The 20th Century

The world just celebrated....well..more like ignored.... the anniversary of the World's Most Boring Day of the 20th Century. That would be Sunday, April 11, 1954, according to a computer program called True Knowledge. The British makers of the program built a computer data base of 300 million facts and then programmed a computer search engine designed to answer questions directly rather than using key words. To test it they decided to ask the computer whether it could determine the most boring day of the 20th century. And it did, using data and reason to come up with the answer. The fifties as a whole were considered a boring decade, so why not one day from it as the single most boring.

Here's the case why it was the most boring. Using notable births, deaths and events as the basis for determining the most boring, the computer could find no other day with as little happening. First, there are always famous people born or dying on any given day, but not apparently on April 11, 1954 It was the day Turkish academic, Abdullah Atalar – and other minor celebrities were born. That's really an excitement reach. And perhaps the biggest event in the news that day was the elections that were held in Belgium. Belgium is a pretty boring place in itself, so it is fitting that election day there would be an exciting event on April 11th.

So I concede that that was the most boring day, but I'd love for there to be more days on this planet where absolutely nothing happened. It's unlikely given the mass communication technology of today. In 1954 news was transmitted at a snail's pace. Today we get American idol updates, blogs, Yu Tube postings and a million other inanities reported every second. The older times of no news is good news might be referable and we now might want to celebrate and imitate "boring days" as a way of escaping the insanity of the world in which we live. One day on this planet where there were no wars or violence and no one was mistreated or went hungry would be a welcome one. Now that would be a day to remember, almost exciting in a perverse way.

Hmmmmm Ironically, maybe if we all take an interest in April 11, 1954 as the Most Boring Day, it will make it a more interesting one and we can designate a new Most Boring. As to the century's most exciting day the programs creator, a fellow with a most assuredly non boring name of Tunstall-Pedoe, didn't believe the computer or any one person for that matter could come up with a single day. “The most exciting day is much harder,” he said. “After all, you’ve got two world wars, assassinations, nuclear bombs, men landing on the moon. It's far easier to calculate the least eventful day. After reading what I wrote here I think you have a great head start on making this day your most boring day ever.

Young And Old Culture

I'm thinking about the "generation gap". Oh....that itself is an outdated term and an indicator that I might not be as "with it" (Oops! another 60's term) as I think. That generation gap term first used in the 60's was coined to define the vast I differences between the old and the young. It's way too broad of a concept to analyze as a whole, but my thinking about the existence of a generation gap is that it is real in one form or another. I think there is still one but it is much more narrow today, probably because society much more easily allows the mixture of the established culture and the young one.

I think older people have one big advantage of the young in that they have already been young and can thus understand it better. Young people are clue less about being old apart from societal stereotypes about being old because their only frame of reference toward the old are those stereotypes and their guesses about the older members of society Since they have never been old they can't understand that age as well as the old can understand youth.

I think I am rambling on like an....old man...so let me get back to what I was thinking about those two ages. That is that the older and younger are far more alike these days than they were in the past. Just look at the fat old woman in spandex for proof. Yuk! Society would have had her committed for wearing that in past generations. But the older members of the culture do wear "youthful clothing", listen to many of the songs the youth also listen to (many teens love the Beatles), read many of the same books and see the same films. If you listen to an oldie speak, he or she will use some of the same younger crowd slang and if you spy on the oldies chatting I bet you will see plenty of "lol" remarks in their dialogue boxes. Even the old madras shirts are popular again now with the young.

Both generations are addicted to the same technology, the same TV, even the same fads (but the youth start the fads and they come much later to the oldies). Go to a college campus and you will see the average age is way up these days. That's because so many old timers are under grads. The old started the counter culture with their hippie and drop out movements. Today's punks, goths, rockers and B Boys are also counter culture movements.

You get the idea. These days there are lots of similarities among age groups. I think the communication revolution has pushed the old and youth cultures closer. There seems less division between the too. But despite it all, I sure hope those old ladies will give up their spandex pants. Only the young should wear that.

GNH

What is your country's GNH? Are you a stumped? I' not referring to the Gross National Product, the universally watched standard by which countries are measured as to their prosperity level. The GNP measures total amounts of goods and services produced in a country every year. But the GNH is a newer measure that determines how well people live in a country based on their Gross National Happiness level.

In 1972 the King of Bhutan, Jigme Singye Wangchuk, came up with that measure as a way of determining how happy his subjects were apart from a purely economic based measurement. Other nations liked the idea and the GNH son became a, if not mathematical, accepted way to determine how nice it is to live in any one country. The GNH takes eight things it classifies as contributors to happiness. They include physical, mental and spiritual health; how effectively time is balanced; social and community aspects; cultural vitality; education; the standard of living; government; and ecological status.

Anyway, it's a strange way to determine who is happiest and too complicated to discuss or evaluate. But it's nice that economics alone. Living in a wealthy nation and being wealthy does not ensure happiness. Happiness can surely be achieved independent of economic status. Just for your information, in the 2011 GNH results just released at the United Nations, Bhutan finished ahead of all Asian nations in GNH scoring. The wealthy countries of Scandinavia were at the top of the GNP list and the poorest nations in Central Africa were at the bottom, proving that economics does have a strong affect on happiness. Yet, social factors were even more important in the scoring.

These indexes, whether they be the GNP or GNH are really only useful as a year to year increase or decrease measurement within each country. Few of us would be happy living in Bhutan even given the high score Bhutan achieved. Also, people achieve happiness for different reasons. One person may be happy living in a situation that would make another miserable and vice versa. Uh, even the happiest fundamentalist Muslim would be uncomfortable in Bangkok an you and I both would be miserable living in Saudi Arabia.

I think that these measurements the world loves to use to assign rank are more likely to make us unhappy than happy.

The Role Of Universities

Now that my daughter is older and finishing high school I'm hearing plenty of "advice " from people about her future course of study and eventual work career. Much of it is puzzling because many of the advisers seem to think that college is a preparation for a life work. I hope it hasn't become that. Instead, college should be a place where a learner can build a knowledge base and learn a process for reasoning in order to more easily find meaning in life.

Trade schools and on the job apprenticing sites should be the agencies that provide the skill training that is a preparation for life work. College should be about fine tuning of reasoning and about teaching how to think. Attending a college or university should not engender comments that we often hear, as in, "Your college major won't enable you to make a lot of money". College should be an end itself, not a means to something else (as in money). Learning a trade or occupation for work is a means to an end- the economic one. Outside of graduate school, which has little resemblance to the under grad four year bachelor's degree course of study, colleges should divorce themselves from that as much as possible.

The world needs more people who can think about philosophy, science , art, history, world cultures and other things the money seekers don't recognize as being as important as their lust for economic prosperity. Our world is filled too much with reality TV, cell phones, garish materialism and endless other trivialities that have pushed more intellectual pursuits and a higher level common knowledge further from the mainstream. If colleges would return to a basic liberal arts curriculum view, it might help change that perspective and make our lives a little more thoughtful and idea enriched.

Our world has too many tweets and too few reasoned discussions, too many bloggers and too few poets, too much division and too little community. I want my daughter to appreciate the few more than the many. College used to be the path for that. Now, if being honest with prospective students, the mission statements of most schools would better say their mission was "to increase our prestige, attract endowments and funding, enroll only the most advanced students while hiring the most renowned faculty, and to attract as many alumni to donate even more money that will make our school even more a diploma factory that will perpetuate our existence".

As I remember, the goal of universities used to be to "produce fully developed human beings". Today they are more narrow paths to economic means.

Easter Candy

I am surrounded by jelly beans in stores and at home (my candy dish here overflows with them) because the Easter candy sales are all about me. Now longer do I have a child young enough to hunt candy eggs and treats outside Easter morning, and Easter baskets filled with candy won't be searched for inside. But I love sweets too much to give up on Easter candy. I have jelly beans and Easter chocolate out in candy dishes and I am nibbling my favorites. Uh...I think I am not alone because almost 100 million chocolate Easter bunnies are made for sale every Easter and I am going to eat my share (always start eating with the bunny ears)!

Last year I read that if all the Easter jelly beans were lined end to end, they would circle the globe nearly three times. So I must do my share to prevent the egg take over of the world by eating my share (the lime green and lemon yellow and orange are my favorites). Besides the jelly beans and chocolate Easter rabbits I like quite a few other Easter candy. I love the caramel Easter eggs, jelly rabbits . Those dark chocolate Easter eggs get my attention too. I used to buy those for Jane's Easter basket knowing that she prefers milk chocolate. She would eat the milk chocolate eggs and I would get the dark ones. The first rule of filling an Easter basket is to always buy you child some candy he or she doesn't care for but you like.

There is also Easter candy I don't like. Those marshmallow peeps lead the list. Yuk! While in a grocery store the other day I saw that they are selling peeps now that are made with a chocolate coating to seduce non peeps people like me. Well, I bought and ate one of the individual chocolate peeps and, it fails the test. What's inside is still a peep. I also dislike and don't want in my basket malt eggs, those hot cross buns (too dry), anything licorice, and any sour or spicy Easter candy.

The best Easter treat is a giant hollow Easter bunny made with premium chocolate. As a kid I used to break some of it into pieces and put it in the freezer or refrigerator. The cold changes the taste of it, and I find it favorable. But whatever time of the year, Easter or any other holiday, we have the excuse to eat plenty of candy guilt free, and I'll never pass up that opportunity.

Vapid TV

We live in a much more culturally diverse world today. There are many more cultural choices good and bad than ever before. So why do most people choose to embrace the basest things from the culture? Why do humans seem to dumb down rather than enrich up? It may be that junk is cheaper than quality, or that humans have a tendency to sink rather than swim when faced with cultural choices. Ask the average person whether he or she would prefer to watch 'American idol' or listen to a classical music concert and I think more than 90 percent would choose to view the inane Idol show.

Reality TV doesn't make us think. In fact, it is counterproductive to think when watching most TV shows today. In my view the medium that most reflects the human decline in knowledge (as we surrender our brains to computers), thinking capacity and well..."culture"...is Television. Television is the "medium of the people" in that it more often reflects the state of humans ordinary lives today. Someone should pull the plug on it! If, for example, Martians came from outer space and left the world with something new called "Television" that showed today's programs, we would consider their deposit an act of war on human brain power.

TV today is bad, and the bad tends to drive out the good in any marketplace, TV included. One would think that with the many improved communication devices would come a winnowing out of the garbage and the proliferation of cultural programs that make us think. But the opposite is what has happened as more and more garbage is programmed and supported by viewers who do not like being challenged to think for themselves.

In short, there is so much junk programmed on TV because garbage is what we seem to want. I wonder why we want to be amused 100% of the time, why we don't want to know important ideas and facts or why thinking is such an uncomfortable state of being for so many today? In some cases, as in our kids who are too young to know any better because they yet have not enough education, they have yet to develop better taste needed for selecting superior programming. But should not parents try to influence kids to view the more enriching TV programs? They most often do not because they themselves are addicted to the same trash.

Exposing people to a never ending variety of idiotic, violent, time wasting TV programming injures the common culture by cheapening it and degrading taste. The problem is that people can not be forced to choose better TV programming or to limit their TV viewing. In a free society governments can't do that, and in a dictatorship governments tend to display their own versions of garbage in the form of propaganda TV shows that reinforce their dictatorial control.

Sad to say, when given choice on TV humans run to the worst ones. So what can be down to rescue society from vapid TV shows? Hmmm If we are lucky those Martians will visit after all and use their lasers to zap the mindless junk while bringing with them only culturally enriching programs.

The Deaded Cliché'

I have an awareness for the cliché'. If you or anyone says or writes it I'll be aware of it. From time to time (as in the case of from time to time) I also use them and more often than I would like to, for the cliché' can be both deceptive in meaning and annoying in practice. As the improper usage of language increases, cliché's and slang increases and we wind up saying too much, too little or just blabbering things that the listener or reader can't understand or won't pay attention to.

My first exposure of the cliché' and my now dislike of them came from the barrage of cliché's my dad used. It was odd, given my father had a magnificent command of the language and used it brilliantly when he wasn't dropping his cliché' bombs. I wonder who indoctrinated him in the use of them? Regardless, if something bad happened that day my always optimistic dad would throw out a "Tomorrow's another day" to reassure me that I should ignore the unpleasantness. If my dad was the only one who wanted his steak cooked well done and I objected with remarks that he was incinerating and drying his steak, he would remark that his like proves we that "Everyone has his own taste" in things. You get the idea! I won't torture you with any more of my father's favorite sayings.

If my dad were alive today he would probably love the blathering cliché's we are faced with in this modern linguistically challenged society. I dread to say, he might even like the "loll" and other chat acronyms that have crept into our spoken language. I don't! I would prefer an all formal language vocabulary to the crazy slang and cliché' phrases and terms that have become standard usage today.

The absolute worst and perhaps most overused of the cliché's is "Have a nice day". It is mystifying to me that someone can make my day nice or that I even have the option to make my day nice. If all our days were nice we would lived in boredom and dread waking each morning. But even Superman can't make his day nice. Too, what if I don't like nice days? Perhaps I want some conflicts or adversity to make the day more interesting and less nice. People who command we should "Have a nice day" are making my days....well....not so nice.

This cliché' subject is getting me down. I think I shall end it here and send wishes that you "have a nice day" today.

Down With Make-up

Finally! Natural looking women are roaming about. Well, ok. Maybe not Most women are still slathering on the make-up, grooming hair and wearing fancy jewelry. But for nearly 60 days, two women from Charlotte, N.C., have been doing something that many women say they could never do: leave the house without makeup. Molly Barker, 51, and Caitlin Boyle, 27, have stopped styling their hair, painting their nails, wearing jewelry, donning high heels or shaving anything. Yep! They both stopped shaving their legs and underarms and both, at first, gave up deodorant. "We weren't sure if it was a beauty or a hygiene product," Boyle says. "It turns out it's a hygiene product."

They plan to go on this mad ride for two months without their beauty routines so that they can answer a question: Why do they do these things anyway? We men have been asking women that for years. Sometimes women can be a little excessive in painting faces and dressing seductively, when we like the look of jeans and a make-up less face just as much. Barker, says she won't wear make-up again, except on "fancy" occasions. Boyle says she may wear it a few times a week but will not consider it a necessity.
Here's what they say they have learned so far:

- They like the natural look of their faces and say their skin looks better now that they do not cover it with make-up every day.
- They haven't felt embarrassed or pressured to doll up. Both say they have an arm pit full of hair and no man has a said a word about it (of course, if one did, he might not live to tell it again).
- They have noticed that quite a few other women don't wear make-up
- They are saving a ton of money previously spent on all the cosmetics
- They do miss smooth legs and underarms
- They have inspired other women to do the same. Thirty other women are currently doing the same experiment (since men are already slobs none have also reportedly been inspired)
Hmmm Let's see..hairy armpits, no deodorant, lipstick bras, heels....Great......for a gorilla. But I doubt too many women are going to cast it all away and want the gorilla look any time soon.