Northington Notes--Distractions

In my childhood days we had a fair come to town every year and sometimes two times a year. Thetime for celebration was at hand as we children went for the rides, the various sights and sounds, and cotton candy and other sweets until we were ill.

We were told stories of gambling games behind the scenes but were not allowed to participate of course. Adults often played a  "shell" game in which a pea was hidden under one of three shells. The player then bet on his/her ability to guess the shell under which the pea lay after the hawker moved the shells about on a table. Talk, hand motions, and other distractions were employed to keep the player at a constant disadvantage in the wagering process.

 

Today we all suffer the same sort of trouble in our lives.  If we approach any issue of life we may be distracted from our focus by the distractions of life.  Passing the TV for instance may lead to a period of time watching to see what is coming next.  With luck the distraction is a flower garden or a child at play in the neighborhood. 
 

Politicians often use distractions to take our attention away from issues which may get unfavorable attention.  Politicians always play to the positive to insure reelection and continuation of the power base that comes with holding office. Talking one way and voting another when in session is a common feature of political distractions.

Major corporations often use distractions to take away attention from their dark side.  If we are to believe advertising major corporations are always working for our best interests. One only need follow the recent campaigns promising less salt and sugar in foods marketed in some stores.  The idea is a fine one which is necessary in improving the health of our nation as we become increasingly overweight and diabetes continues to rise in effect.   

The ad campaign by at least one major corporate chain is a distraction in the sense we are led to believe the corporation is a 'good guy' and not the 'bad guy' so often posited in the media.  In fact the dark side continues to live.  Said corporation continues to discriminate against women or so the case would seem with women earning less than men and holding far fewer management positions in relation to their numbers than men.

The use of distractions is a common affair in advertising.  No one knows better than the energy industry how to distract consumers from the effects of carbon-based fuels on the environment.

  

Avoiding the distractions on a day to day basis is a difficult proposition.   In order to do so we must continue to seek information and keep abreast of changing issues.  We must remain vigilant and never allow the issues to be covered up.  The times are changing at a very rapid rate these days but the distractions must not be allowed to rule in the end.  Look behind the story to find the truth. Follow your instincts when the sound or the look is too good to be true. Try never to fall prey to the distractions.

Peace.

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Quote of the Week:

One of the points about distractions is that everything that they

do is destabilizing. --Bruce Sterling

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Make Your Mark--Northington Notes

Each of us gets only one trek through this life.  The past  two years have seen the loss of three people in my life.   Each one died unexpectedly and two were very young.   The recent events in Arizona brought back thoughts of  death and how very fragile life is for us humans.  We cannot  know in most instances when we are going to meet our end.   That fact makes every moment an important one as we travel along life's pathway.

We should each consider the situation and give some personal thought to several questions.  What will people think of and about me when I am no longer alive?  Will anyone care?   Of course they will, but will the positives outweigh the negatives?

Every day we all have many opportunities to make a variety of choices in our actions.  We can choose positive actions or not.  We can choose to improve another person's life or not.   All of us no matter our individual circumstance have choices these days.

As a child we sometimes ate fruit from a nearby persimmon tree.   When ripe the fruit had a purple skin with orange flesh.  Before the fruit reached its final stage of ripeness we sometimes took a bite to see what might be the taste.  The puckered mouth showed just how unpleasant the taste could be.

There was an expression that arose at some forgotten time and place in my life.  "There are some people born with green  persimmons in the periodontal spaces."  Those people are continually at odds with the world, never satisfied with their lot,  and a constant source of irritation to those with whom they come in contact.  They make a pretty poor mark on their trek through life.

Spend every day trying to treat others the way you'd wish to be treated and you will manage to make the best mark possible for yourself.  At the same time you can manage to improve the lives of those you meet as well as making your own life a better one.

Into each life a bit of rain must fall, but if we carry around a bit of sunshine to make the garden grow the rain will be a supplement and not a detriment.  Do your best to make your life mark one of sunshine and not one of rain.

Peace.

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Quote of the Week:

Every man dies.  Not every man really lives.

--William Wallace

The Ongoing TSA Scam

In the name of "better airline security" we travelers have over the years come to be subject to increasing levels of invasive searching.  Off go the shoes.  Now we are groped in the groin in case we have explosives in our underwear.  And then comes news of theft of valuables following luggage screening in an airport. 

How much longer are we going to tolerate this?  The facade of security is just that.  We are not one whit more safe today than we have been for years.  Yet we must suffer long lines and invasive searches to get on an airline.  My family is avoiding flying when we are able.  Maybe if enough people stay away this mess will change.

Peace.

Christine PAC

No real surprises here.  Christine O'Donnell having lost her bid for the DE Senate is forming a PAC of her own.  "Issues oriented."  Maybe issues mean paying herself a big salary.  Stay tuned for more news on this one.

RIP Spark Anderson

Sparky Anderson, the first manager to win World Series championships with teams from both the National and American leagues, died on Thursday in Thousand Oaks, Calif. He was 76.

Political Commentary

Jeff Stahler gets it about right this week.

Peace.

Northington Notes--Intolerance

Musings and commentary by
Jerry W. Northington, DVM
October 15, 2010
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Intolerance

My childhood was spent in the far western reaches of

Kentucky in an area called the Jackson Purchase after

the President who bought the area long ago. During the

time of the Civil War that part of Kentucky made an

effort to secede from both the Union and from Kentucky

in order to support the South in its cause. Union armies

put that idea to rest but for many minds the issue

remains alive and well to this day.


Reading a book recently, "Confederates in the Attic",

by Tony Horwitz, brought back many childhood memories.

Our media today tell tales of continued intolerance when

people are interviewed about their views of immigrants or

of people of color. Some politicians are making hay on

those issues of gross intolerance.


The more we find ways to see ourselves as different

from other human beings the more damage we do to

humanity as a whole. Over the course of history religious

and racial intolerance was the driving force of wars in

many regions. Some areas have lengthy histories of

continued violent episodes.


America is no stranger to racial or religious intolerance.

In past times people of color were enslaved and immigrants

of various religions were persecuted. That we fail to

change our course in these times is disappointing.

Children raised in households preaching intolerance continue

to spread the dysfunction through future generations.


If we as a nation or even as a species are to survive far

into the future we must change our ways. We each and

every one must look deep inside at our own feelings. We must

guard against any measures of intolerance. Do not mistreat

any person for reason of their economic situation,

their personal hygiene, their skin color, their language,

their sex or sexual preference, or any other distinguishing mark

that differentiates any person from yourself. If we all live by

the Golden Rule and treat others as we'd like to be treated

we may one day hope to find ourselves living in a much more

peaceful and prosperous world.


Peace.

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Quote of the Week:

It is thus tolerance that is the source of peace, and intolerance

that is the source of disorder and squabbling.

--Pierre Bayle

Christine O'Donnell is NOT Me!!!

But Chris Coons is. Chris is the sort of man we need for our Senator.

Peace.

The Age of Reason

From one of my favorite bloggers come this piece, Age of Reason. If you read nothing else this month this one is worthy.

For example:

The great appeal of Sarah Palin is that bone-ignorant people recognize that she is every bit as bone-ignorant as they are. This comforts, not threatens, them. That is truly the sort of person they want running their lives.(snip)People fear what they don’t understand. It has always been such. And the greatest wrong that the anti-Enlightenment crusaders against objective truth commit, in my view, is that they play to that ignorance, seeding the fear, and thus birth and nurture the hate.

The entire posting is excellent IMHO. Read and ponder.

Peace.

$3 Trillion and Beyond

The costs of the Iraq War are now pegged in excess of $3 trillion with no apparent end in sight. Give a bit of thought to what those numbers mean. Our great grandchildren will be paying the bills as most of the money is borrowed as part of the national debt. Our infrastructure suffers daily (schools, hospitals, roads, water supplies, and public buildings) while there is not enough money to complete repairs or even to supply regular maintenance.

When ever will the American public awaken to the travesty that was and continues to be the continuation of the Iraq occupation? Bad as the dollars are day by day what about the human lives being lost to this day? We have lost too many already. We have no more dollars to waste and no more children to lose to war.

Peace.

Goodbye, Dr. Laura

Goodbye and good riddance,Dr. Laura. Don't let the door hit you on the way out. Many of us will not miss your point of view.

Avoidance

Movies are not an ordinary part of my life these days. But one recent presentation about a military veteran caught my attention. In one section of the movie there was a discussion about post-traumatic stress disorder and the mechanisms with which affected troops (or other people, too) live their lives in response to the disorder.

A psychiatrist spoke to avoidance as one means of coping. People avoid situations which may remind them of their past trauma. That was a mechanism I employed after coming home from Vietnam and in some measures continue to apply to this day. Our society today practices avoidance in dealing with the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan when we fail to see the images or to hear the pleas of the affected peoples.

The trauma of a war zone cannot be put into words. The experience is not one any human being deserves. Civilians, troops on both sides, and the land involved all suffer damage as a result of any war. In war the major insult is not to the troops but is rather to the civilians, the women, the children, and the aged who have no part in military activity. We must continue to remember every person on either side killed or wounded as a result of our military intervention is a son or daughter, maybe a mother or a father, perhaps a brother or a sister. Every life lost touches the lives of the many who surround that person. The damage spreads ripples throughout the surrounding society.

Walk a moment in the shoes of an Iraqi or Afghan civilian. Imagine your town is occupied by foreign soldiers. Imagine your cousin (or niece or brother) has been killed by the foreigners. How are you going to feel? Would you resist the occupation? What makes the Iraqi people one small bit different from us here in the U.S. or in any other nation around the globe?

Go one more step in your mind. Think about all the children born since the invasion who have known nothing but war in their short lives. How will this childhood affect them in the future? Will they be able to put this behind them and live peaceful lives or will they forever be scarred and turn into terrorists themselves?

I suggest we cease our avoidance and look to peaceful means of resolving world conflicts. The end solutions to terrorism will lie in social and economic change. We need to begin our pursuit of those measures as soon as possible. We must vote for those people offering the most hope of real change. Then we must remain vocal and keep in touch with those we elect to remind them they serve us first of all. Those we elect must lead our nation in the direction we choose. Only our continued action will insure the best course is taken.

Peace.

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Quote of the Day:

In peace, sons bury their fathers.

In war, fathers bury their sons.

-- Herodotus


From Northington Notes, June 30, 2010.

Boycott Arizona

Given the signing of the most egregious immigration bill in America by the governor of Arizona the time has come for all who stand for human rights to boycott the state. No traveling in the state. Sell all investments. No offering of any support to the state administration or to the people who forged this terrible injustice.

Americans must speak up and be heard to end the ongoing racial discrimination and xenophobic behavior of too many in our nation today. Our nation was founded on principles of justice for all. We must not lose sight of our most important ideals lest we lose too much of what makes America a fine nation.

Peace.

Spygate in Lower Merion

The news continues to get worse and worse from the Lower Merion spy cam invasion of high school student homes. Now an attorney for the district confirms

at least 56,000 webcam photographs and screen shots from laptops issued to high school students

How much worse can this get. The district continues to claim no salacious content in the images but the mere fact the images were obtained at regular intervals

The tracking program took images every 15 minutes, usually capturing the webcam photo of the user and a screen shot at the same time. The program was sometimes turned on for weeks or months at a time.

is terrible. Whatever happened to privacy in our nation? Are we no longer allowed to keep our personal lives private at all?

Peace.

Palin's Fiscal Policy

Some people take a very simplistic approach to the world. Sarah Palin is no exception to that rule. Her fiscal policy seems to be one of "Take care of number one." All else falls far behind.

Peace.

The Party of "NO" Defends Wall Street

In the face of Democratic moves backed by the Obama admnistration to regulate Wall Street the Republicans once again are up in arms to defend the very institution that brought us the economic disaster we find today. Deregulation under the Bush administration led to the near collapse of our entire economic system. One may argue the bailout was not the way to go but at least as a result of TARP we have slowed the crash and begun to see some measures of recovery. We cannot allow Republican proposals to take the day and return us to the bad old days of a crashing market.

Peace.

Big Banks Crying Over Potential New Regulation

Proposed regulations aimed at increasing the liquidity of major banking establishments is being opposed by many of the players. The very same Wall Street bankers that brought us the recent economic disaster that ended in TARP funding are now decrying efforts to put in place a system aimed at preventing a second occurrence.

The U.S. banks argue that the liquidity rules could force lenders around the world to sell $6 trillion of new debt to meet the requirements. Under the rules, banks would have to maintain a “net stable funding ratio” of 100 percent, meaning they would need an amount of longer-term loans or deposits equal to their financing needs for 12 months, including off-balance-sheet commitments and anticipated securitizations. This would require that some short-term funding be replaced by longer-term debt.

And what is wrong with liquidity instead of a house of cards credit system?

Apparently the bottom line is the issue here.

Higher capital requirements and a stricter definition of capital may reduce lenders’ return on equity to 12.9 percent from the 13.8 percent estimated for 2012.

A few billions more for the industry or more assurance we taxpayers are better protected in the future.

That is not a real question in my mind. The runaway abuses of recent years by the Wall Street giants must be stopped. The few insiders who benefit do not deserve to live on our backs. We deserve some consideration, too.

Peace.

Bad News on the Environmental Front

The Obama administration is proposing to open large swaths of offshore areas to drilling for oil.

The proposal — a compromise that will please oil companies and domestic drilling advocates but anger some residents of affected states and many environmental organizations — would end a longstanding moratorium on oil exploration along the East Coast from the northern tip of Delaware to the central coast of Florida, covering 167 million acres of ocean.

The administration claims this move is an opening measure in a broad appeal

help win political support for comprehensive energy and climate legislation.

Anyone thinking the oil companies are going to appeased by this bribe is not looking at recent history. Corporate culture is not about supporting the environment but is all about making money and more money.

The move for more drilling looks to be one more energy boondoggle in the same range as "clean coal" and increased use of nuclear power. We have a long way to go in this fight.

Peace.

A Bit of Dem Backbone Showing

The ink on the new healthcare bill was not yet dry when corporations began to cry about the costs to them. And the GOP took hold immediately to tout the purported costs and potential job losses. As usual the truth is yet to be told.

But the reality is less striking than the enormous figures indicate.

When Part D was enacted in 2003, it contained a number of heavily criticized boondoggles for big businesses, but one such loophole offered companies subsidies to continue providing prescription drug benefits to retirees...and made those subsidies tax deductible.

Fast forward to 2010, the newly signed health care bill doesn't end the subsidies, or change the fact that those subsidies are tax free--it simply ends companies' ability to deduct them.

In preparing for the hit, though, companies have summed up the permanent cost of this tax change and plan to write it down all at once. Now, conservatives are citing that overall cost to suggest that these companies will have to bear a billion dollar burden every year. And, of course, the kicker is that this change will not take effect under the terms of the law for three years.

Dems are holding the corporations and Repubs to the truth but will the public hear any of the facts? Time will tell.

Republican Hypocrisy

From the Wilmington News Journal:

Republican hypocrisy continues to be evident as the health care bill care bill is signed into law.

After complaining first the law was too long, conservative voices began to rant about the law being too short. After pushing hard to get the sort of reforms they desired and watching Democrats move to the right, conservatives voted against the bill. Not one single Republican in the House of Representatives voted to support health care for Americans. How will Republicans explain this vote? Under the Bush administration, the Congressional Budget Office was touted as reliable in its estimates of costs for programs the Republicans desired. Now with the same office saying health care reform will save money for the nation, the same conservative voices are lifted in criticism and opposition to the analysis.

Will the hypocrisy never end? When will the American public awaken to the twisted half truths and outright lies being put forth today by too many voices on the fringes of conservative politics? When will the media begin to seek truth and facts instead of simply repeating the words of any voice available? We live in a time of great change. Only by facing facts and speaking truth will we move forward as a member of world society.

Jerry Northington

Actions speak much louder than words. All one need to is to follow the Republican actions to see the lies that come from their mouths at regular intervals.

Peace.