So recently I was invited to my brother-in-law’s retirement ceremony in Washington DC at the Arlington National Cemetery women’s Center. I thought I would share a few impressions about the whole event.
If you’ve never been to Arlington you owe it to yourself if you consider yourself a patriot or even a historian. This place is a very impactful representation of how so many have given up the ultimate sacrifice to allow us to be safe and allow us to have the freedoms we so often take for granted. Just the size of the place made me emotional and touched me to my core. The next time I hear someone whine in a line at the grocery store about how long it is taking I will think of this place. The fallen in this place fought for you to stand in that line without fear.
I was in the Air Force for one stint and although I really don’t place myself in this group it makes me proud to know I served. I still get overwhelmed thinking of the first look at Arlington. There are no words I can write to describe the feelings.
Now on to the occasion that I visited this place; my brother-in-law Kelly was being honored in a way most NCOs’ are not honored. He was retiring from the Air Force having achieved what only 3% of Air Force NCOs’ do achieve and that is making it to the grade of Senior Master Sergeant. There were many other reasons to honor this great man. He served with some of the top Generals in the Armed Forces and also distinguished himself everywhere he went including some pretty difficult theaters.
To meet Kelly is to know Kelly. He has no pretention about himself and you never need to wonder where he stands on any particular issue. You do have to have a pretty radical sense of humor if you plan on keeping up with him. He is honest to a fault….thoughtful….intelligent…..a great friend; husband, brother, uncle and Son. If he never served in the Air Force he would have distinguished himself wherever he went.
I know no better honor for any man than the last paragraph. So to close this I just want to say thank you Kelly. Thank you for spending all those lonely nights….those challenging days….and those 28 years as guardian of our great country. Most importantly, thank you for allowing me the privilege of knowing you.
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Passion
For some strange reason that escapes me as most strange reasons do, I seem to be thinking about a word lately and just how it relates to life in general. The word gets tossed around frequently and can sometimes be misconstrued. Its killing you now right? Ok, enough toying with my reader…..the word is passion.
Now I’m not letting the discussion degrade into the sexual connotations of the word although I do believe the parallels are uncanny. Let’s do something I do frequently when bringing up words and look to the origins of the word. So here is what I found out about this word:
Date of Origin 12th c.
Latin patī meant ‘suffer’ (it is the source of English patient). From itspast participial stem pass- was coined in post-classical times the nounpassiō, denoting specifically the ‘suffering of Christ on the cross’. English acquired the word via Old French passion, but its familiarmodern senses, in which ‘strength of feeling’ has been transferred from ‘pain’ to ‘sexual attraction’ and ‘anger’, did not emerge until the 16thcentury. Also from the Latin stem pass- comes passive (14th c.), etymologically ‘capable of suffering’.
I had a feeling that the origin would be through Christ’s passion specifically about his suffering during his last human days. This topic now becomes even more relevant as we are into Lent now and that suffering for many Christians is about to be relived once more. That will always be the ultimate display of “passion”.
Another by-product of passion, at least in my eyes, is how successful people always have it in their lives. Most people I know do not luck their way into success. Think about anyone you deal with, work for or read about who is successful. If you ever listen to someone speak about what makes them successful almost all will say to have a dream, work for that dream and you will realize success. Having dreams is important but I think without the passion to work for that dream, the dream by itself is of no real value.
This passion does not always reveal itself in a most abundant or recognizable way. Take my Dad, for instance (God rest his soul), you might not always see his passion. He was often a soft spoken man but if you knew him and I mean really knew him, you knew where his passions resided. Here are a couple examples…Yankees, politics, family, working with hands. I threw the last piece in because those other aspects were pretty in your face and obvious but if you knew how he kept busy in his woodworking long after he retired you understand what I am talking about. It wouldn’t matter if it was a flower box on his house, or a picture frame or clock he would always use the same meticulous passion for detail that made anything he worked on extra special. That’s the kind of passion I’m referring to at the moment. I’ve had bosses who had it. If you take the average person and inject passion into them about something, it spills over and becomes very inspiring to others.
Passion is not something you are necessarily born with and that may be the best news of all. There’s still time! You may be confusing passion with self-respect and although most that have passion have the second trait there are many who don’t hold both characteristics. There are many hard working people that don’t necessarily exhibit passion about their work and that’s OK. The leaders that are successful generally take care of that.
I took on this subject not to bore you….ooops too late….but really to kind of make you step back and perhaps look at yourself. Do you have passion about something? Do you share that passion? If not you should. You may just impress someone who could change your life. Food for thought….or perhaps not.
Now I’m not letting the discussion degrade into the sexual connotations of the word although I do believe the parallels are uncanny. Let’s do something I do frequently when bringing up words and look to the origins of the word. So here is what I found out about this word:
Date of Origin 12th c.
Latin patī meant ‘suffer’ (it is the source of English patient). From itspast participial stem pass- was coined in post-classical times the nounpassiō, denoting specifically the ‘suffering of Christ on the cross’. English acquired the word via Old French passion, but its familiarmodern senses, in which ‘strength of feeling’ has been transferred from ‘pain’ to ‘sexual attraction’ and ‘anger’, did not emerge until the 16thcentury. Also from the Latin stem pass- comes passive (14th c.), etymologically ‘capable of suffering’.
I had a feeling that the origin would be through Christ’s passion specifically about his suffering during his last human days. This topic now becomes even more relevant as we are into Lent now and that suffering for many Christians is about to be relived once more. That will always be the ultimate display of “passion”.
Another by-product of passion, at least in my eyes, is how successful people always have it in their lives. Most people I know do not luck their way into success. Think about anyone you deal with, work for or read about who is successful. If you ever listen to someone speak about what makes them successful almost all will say to have a dream, work for that dream and you will realize success. Having dreams is important but I think without the passion to work for that dream, the dream by itself is of no real value.
This passion does not always reveal itself in a most abundant or recognizable way. Take my Dad, for instance (God rest his soul), you might not always see his passion. He was often a soft spoken man but if you knew him and I mean really knew him, you knew where his passions resided. Here are a couple examples…Yankees, politics, family, working with hands. I threw the last piece in because those other aspects were pretty in your face and obvious but if you knew how he kept busy in his woodworking long after he retired you understand what I am talking about. It wouldn’t matter if it was a flower box on his house, or a picture frame or clock he would always use the same meticulous passion for detail that made anything he worked on extra special. That’s the kind of passion I’m referring to at the moment. I’ve had bosses who had it. If you take the average person and inject passion into them about something, it spills over and becomes very inspiring to others.
Passion is not something you are necessarily born with and that may be the best news of all. There’s still time! You may be confusing passion with self-respect and although most that have passion have the second trait there are many who don’t hold both characteristics. There are many hard working people that don’t necessarily exhibit passion about their work and that’s OK. The leaders that are successful generally take care of that.
I took on this subject not to bore you….ooops too late….but really to kind of make you step back and perhaps look at yourself. Do you have passion about something? Do you share that passion? If not you should. You may just impress someone who could change your life. Food for thought….or perhaps not.
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Once Again..Oil Companies Get The Goldmine and We Get The Shaft
I am always somewhat amazed as are many just how quickly gas prices tick up at just the thought of turmoil in the Mideast. As if this is something new these countries are suffering from internal fracturing. Libya is somewhere around 3% of the world’s oil production and yet they seem to have an amazing impact on refined gasoline prices.
What is befuddling to me is the fact that these countries have been at war if not with their neighboring countries then with themselves for about as long as they have existed on the planet. They know nothing but war as the way to solve their problems. This has almost always been the case and will be long after I’m but a memory in the flash of the human being pan.
Now the oil companies and markets can have a field day with consumers in the name of political unrest in the Middle East. What a farce! It is what it is. We will continue to be the ones to suffer and they can continue to dupe the consumer simply because we have no other option. As long as Liberals are controlling things, we will be powerless to be able to drill and become self sufficient. We will, of course, make sure that the clubbed foot seal or the spotted polar bear is safe long after we have left the planet. That seems to be a noble way to snuff ourselves out.
I know….I hear many of you saying that once again this conservative whack job is just spouting off. Then again, take note of your total at the pump next time you fill up and thank the government for saving the spotted ring horned horny toad from extinction. I think we will be extinct before the toad.
What is befuddling to me is the fact that these countries have been at war if not with their neighboring countries then with themselves for about as long as they have existed on the planet. They know nothing but war as the way to solve their problems. This has almost always been the case and will be long after I’m but a memory in the flash of the human being pan.
Now the oil companies and markets can have a field day with consumers in the name of political unrest in the Middle East. What a farce! It is what it is. We will continue to be the ones to suffer and they can continue to dupe the consumer simply because we have no other option. As long as Liberals are controlling things, we will be powerless to be able to drill and become self sufficient. We will, of course, make sure that the clubbed foot seal or the spotted polar bear is safe long after we have left the planet. That seems to be a noble way to snuff ourselves out.
I know….I hear many of you saying that once again this conservative whack job is just spouting off. Then again, take note of your total at the pump next time you fill up and thank the government for saving the spotted ring horned horny toad from extinction. I think we will be extinct before the toad.
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Vices???
I thought I would think a little about people and their vices. We all have them and if you deny it you are kidding yourself. (That in of itself is a vice) I always like when I think about simple things, which my little brain has a tendency in doing, to look at a word’s basic definition. Here is my outdated dictionary’s definition…actually it has several:
1 (a)An evil action or habit (b)evil conduct (c) I like this definition; prostitution 2 a trivial fault or failing.
Curious how prostitution falls under the evil action or habit (Habit???Really?????) And not under a trivial fault or failing. Seems to me it would be as trivial a fault as a habit! I guess I should not focus on that one definition as I think the author, whoever the author for Webster’s Dictionary might be, was almost making an editorial comment. The author could have said booze or smoking or a very large group of other vices.
Do you wonder who actually invented the first dictionary? I guess the Bible could fall under that in some ways as it definitely defined many things although with each passing generation man tends to enjoy redefining behavior as a way, I think, of rationalizing. What kind of person has dictionary author on their resume? Do they sit around in committees trying to think up new words or make up new words so they can write a new book? Seems like a pretty tedious way to make a living. Personally I prefer massacring the existing words and sort of literally burning them beyond recognition.
Seems I have strayed from my original thought, what a surprise, so I will revisit it for a moment. We all have vices. I’m not here to air any dirty laundry….I do believe my list of vices could be considered average to below average. Writing is a sort of vice for me but I would consider it a good vice….not the evil habit but more the trivial fault. As I re-read that definition I come to the realization that a good vice is an oxymoron. According to the Webster geeks a vice can only be evil or trivial. (or prostitution)
I guess in a matter of speaking many of us have vices to replace what we really should be doing. (Or to forget what we really should be doing) Many people drink for that very reason. The fact is you can drink yourself into believing you have no worries but eventually you wake up realizing everything is as it was with the exception that you are hung over and more broke than you were. So vices are in the very simplest terms I think crutches. You can put lipstick on a pig but at the end of the day it’s still a pig.
Don’t have answers and I make no judgments here. Vices are what they are. You either learn to live with them if they don’t destroy you or you change. I try to fix what I can about myself and let the chips fall after that point. If this little post made you think a bit than you are obviously intellectually far superior to your other human friends…so rejoice in your superiority but try not to do it with a vice.
1 (a)An evil action or habit (b)evil conduct (c) I like this definition; prostitution 2 a trivial fault or failing.
Curious how prostitution falls under the evil action or habit (Habit???Really?????) And not under a trivial fault or failing. Seems to me it would be as trivial a fault as a habit! I guess I should not focus on that one definition as I think the author, whoever the author for Webster’s Dictionary might be, was almost making an editorial comment. The author could have said booze or smoking or a very large group of other vices.
Do you wonder who actually invented the first dictionary? I guess the Bible could fall under that in some ways as it definitely defined many things although with each passing generation man tends to enjoy redefining behavior as a way, I think, of rationalizing. What kind of person has dictionary author on their resume? Do they sit around in committees trying to think up new words or make up new words so they can write a new book? Seems like a pretty tedious way to make a living. Personally I prefer massacring the existing words and sort of literally burning them beyond recognition.
Seems I have strayed from my original thought, what a surprise, so I will revisit it for a moment. We all have vices. I’m not here to air any dirty laundry….I do believe my list of vices could be considered average to below average. Writing is a sort of vice for me but I would consider it a good vice….not the evil habit but more the trivial fault. As I re-read that definition I come to the realization that a good vice is an oxymoron. According to the Webster geeks a vice can only be evil or trivial. (or prostitution)
I guess in a matter of speaking many of us have vices to replace what we really should be doing. (Or to forget what we really should be doing) Many people drink for that very reason. The fact is you can drink yourself into believing you have no worries but eventually you wake up realizing everything is as it was with the exception that you are hung over and more broke than you were. So vices are in the very simplest terms I think crutches. You can put lipstick on a pig but at the end of the day it’s still a pig.
Don’t have answers and I make no judgments here. Vices are what they are. You either learn to live with them if they don’t destroy you or you change. I try to fix what I can about myself and let the chips fall after that point. If this little post made you think a bit than you are obviously intellectually far superior to your other human friends…so rejoice in your superiority but try not to do it with a vice.
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Really Important Questions....(NOT)
So I have some questions about some of the oddities of life. I might just as well dive in so here goes…
Did you ever notice that a coffee mug and I don’t mean one of those prissy little pinkies in the air cups is about two cups of what your average coffee maker says? Is this some evil conspiracy to make everyone drink less coffee? It seems a little counter-productive if you make coffee makers. One additional thought….if you make coffee makers I guess that makes you a coffee maker maker…..hmmm
Why are pill bottles usually about 4 to 5 times larger than the contents? It would seem drug manufacturers could cut their costs (and ours!) if they would look at that!
I wonder about these new phenomena of post-it notes. I thought this was quite an ingenious invention but why are they now making them so small that it takes a magnifying glass if you actually want to write a note? They now make a computer post-it note…..what’s that all about….how many post-it notes does one have to write now that they must put them around virtually now???
I marvel at this issue….you know the issue of the incredibly difficult task of opening a CD. The companies seem to be adverse to improving their packaging so now another company says ok….we’ll make a new gizmo (technical term there) that with four swipes can disarm this packaging. American ingenuity abounds….or was it Chinese?
Here’s a puzzler to me; why are there about 50,000 varieties of batteries made? I understand that different voltages are required for different types of electronics but look at the watch battery kiosk sometime….they are all pretty much the same voltage and come in 50,000 sizes. (Perhaps a slight exaggeration) What’s that all about?
I wonder just how many wall calendars are made in or should I say for this country. They have entire stores in our wonderful malls devoted to calendars. I would bet they make enough of these often hideous calendars to put on every wall in every room in this country and even perhaps the world! I say our first green initiative would be to stop making so many calendars.
Here is something most people won’t care about which is exactly the kind of thing I enjoy bringing up….just how many types of weather radar are required to determine it’s going to rain outside and how do they still get it wrong??? Our local stations seem to have many different types with snappy names like Doppler Interactive Radar….why in the world would I care to interact with weather radar that gets it wrong anyway? My knee does a better job at the weather forecast!
More to come but I thought I would ask some of these things where most normal thinking people would not dare venture.
Did you ever notice that a coffee mug and I don’t mean one of those prissy little pinkies in the air cups is about two cups of what your average coffee maker says? Is this some evil conspiracy to make everyone drink less coffee? It seems a little counter-productive if you make coffee makers. One additional thought….if you make coffee makers I guess that makes you a coffee maker maker…..hmmm
Why are pill bottles usually about 4 to 5 times larger than the contents? It would seem drug manufacturers could cut their costs (and ours!) if they would look at that!
I wonder about these new phenomena of post-it notes. I thought this was quite an ingenious invention but why are they now making them so small that it takes a magnifying glass if you actually want to write a note? They now make a computer post-it note…..what’s that all about….how many post-it notes does one have to write now that they must put them around virtually now???
I marvel at this issue….you know the issue of the incredibly difficult task of opening a CD. The companies seem to be adverse to improving their packaging so now another company says ok….we’ll make a new gizmo (technical term there) that with four swipes can disarm this packaging. American ingenuity abounds….or was it Chinese?
Here’s a puzzler to me; why are there about 50,000 varieties of batteries made? I understand that different voltages are required for different types of electronics but look at the watch battery kiosk sometime….they are all pretty much the same voltage and come in 50,000 sizes. (Perhaps a slight exaggeration) What’s that all about?
I wonder just how many wall calendars are made in or should I say for this country. They have entire stores in our wonderful malls devoted to calendars. I would bet they make enough of these often hideous calendars to put on every wall in every room in this country and even perhaps the world! I say our first green initiative would be to stop making so many calendars.
Here is something most people won’t care about which is exactly the kind of thing I enjoy bringing up….just how many types of weather radar are required to determine it’s going to rain outside and how do they still get it wrong??? Our local stations seem to have many different types with snappy names like Doppler Interactive Radar….why in the world would I care to interact with weather radar that gets it wrong anyway? My knee does a better job at the weather forecast!
More to come but I thought I would ask some of these things where most normal thinking people would not dare venture.
Saturday, January 15, 2011
My Little World
So it’s Saturday morning and I have work to do. Those two terms just don’t seem well suited together so I may have to remove one and we all know we can’t control the day of the week.
I look around my heavily cluttered office and have so many things I could write about. On the wall I have an almost complete Jim Beam train that my Dad gave to me some time ago complete with the shelf he built with it. One of the cars still is untapped and being as I have no affinity for Jim Beam it may stay that way. It is obviously aged longer than Jim Beam is typically aged so I’m not certain what that means to the contents.
I have picture frames sprayed across the room with Dad, sons, daughters, wife, sister, grandchildren, a painting of Lyon Mountain, an obscure painting of a lighthouse scene, a golf course, and a beautiful scene from a place called Lake Junaluska in North Carolina. Seems like an interesting, if not always connected, plethora of topics.
I have a phone, an adding machine to count my millions and a tissue box when the realization I don’t have millions or even a calculable fraction of millions. I have an indiscernible group of books, CDs, movies of different formats, manuals, bibles, software. (You name it…it’s probably here although I might not know it) I have one of those weird gifts….a ceramic piggy bank with the words “Green Fees” on the side. It is most definitely empty which is yet another commentary on my golfing future. I have two printers…that’s right two. (To be fair one is a scanner/fax machine as well so I had a reason for printer two)
Let’s see what else I have…..a number of flashlights…some functional…some not so much. I have so many pens and pencils that I do believe I am very close to qualifying for the hoarder classification. My bet is 50% of these pens are dried up. I have a USB turntable for converting my albums into CDs. That project seems to have stalled out for some reason. BY the way, albums to you newborns are circular vinyl disks similar to a CD but oh maybe 3 times larger with grooves that contain music and other various audio compulsions of the good old days. There is still a rich sound that comes from vinyl that CDs will never capture.
I have a real antique in this office of mine….a phone book. To you newborns that was a rather cumbersome manual that served well as a doorstop, kindling and at one time was used to actually look up someone’s phone number. I hear now that they recycle whatever they get and make shingles from them.
I have a shredder. This was a device that really came into prevalence during the Nixon administration when covering one’s tracks became important….should have shredded those tapes as well.
Last on my list I will discuss is an exercise bike. It is very useful in hanging clothes on and leaning stuff against it that I have no real place for. It is a little difficult to dust so I avoid that task. I could go on with this inventory but since you are all asleep by this time it would only be for my entertainment. As a famous blogger once said….”Have a fine day”
I look around my heavily cluttered office and have so many things I could write about. On the wall I have an almost complete Jim Beam train that my Dad gave to me some time ago complete with the shelf he built with it. One of the cars still is untapped and being as I have no affinity for Jim Beam it may stay that way. It is obviously aged longer than Jim Beam is typically aged so I’m not certain what that means to the contents.
I have picture frames sprayed across the room with Dad, sons, daughters, wife, sister, grandchildren, a painting of Lyon Mountain, an obscure painting of a lighthouse scene, a golf course, and a beautiful scene from a place called Lake Junaluska in North Carolina. Seems like an interesting, if not always connected, plethora of topics.
I have a phone, an adding machine to count my millions and a tissue box when the realization I don’t have millions or even a calculable fraction of millions. I have an indiscernible group of books, CDs, movies of different formats, manuals, bibles, software. (You name it…it’s probably here although I might not know it) I have one of those weird gifts….a ceramic piggy bank with the words “Green Fees” on the side. It is most definitely empty which is yet another commentary on my golfing future. I have two printers…that’s right two. (To be fair one is a scanner/fax machine as well so I had a reason for printer two)
Let’s see what else I have…..a number of flashlights…some functional…some not so much. I have so many pens and pencils that I do believe I am very close to qualifying for the hoarder classification. My bet is 50% of these pens are dried up. I have a USB turntable for converting my albums into CDs. That project seems to have stalled out for some reason. BY the way, albums to you newborns are circular vinyl disks similar to a CD but oh maybe 3 times larger with grooves that contain music and other various audio compulsions of the good old days. There is still a rich sound that comes from vinyl that CDs will never capture.
I have a real antique in this office of mine….a phone book. To you newborns that was a rather cumbersome manual that served well as a doorstop, kindling and at one time was used to actually look up someone’s phone number. I hear now that they recycle whatever they get and make shingles from them.
I have a shredder. This was a device that really came into prevalence during the Nixon administration when covering one’s tracks became important….should have shredded those tapes as well.
Last on my list I will discuss is an exercise bike. It is very useful in hanging clothes on and leaning stuff against it that I have no real place for. It is a little difficult to dust so I avoid that task. I could go on with this inventory but since you are all asleep by this time it would only be for my entertainment. As a famous blogger once said….”Have a fine day”
Sunday, January 2, 2011
Do You Hold The Answers?
So the question is still on the table. I realize that many have made up their minds one way or another but you really need to look at the facts that have been gathered before you can reach a conclusion and as I see it the conclusion is we don’t have enough facts. Our meager existence is really the major problem at determining the answer to this question. We can do all the surmising and theories but we don’t have enough long term evidence to answer the question. Long term is the operative phrase. I’m here to tell you that Bird Berdan (if he were still doing the weather for Channel 5) in upstate NY can not tell you unequivocally that this exists. All of the weathermen and women in the world can give you theories and many already have but they are just theories. All of Hollywood’s smartest celebrities (is that an oxymoron?) have also weighed in on this issue. All of CNN and MSNBC and FOX news have also distributed their theories on this issue. Let’s not forget the activist singers that are so well versed in this issue as well.
The question you may ask, if you’re still reading, is this; Does global warming exist? The really curious thing about this is that scientists on a global spectrum differ about it. Some say we are actually experiencing global cooling while some say we are doomed to the ozone dissolving up and our existence as humans will be snuffed out. Now ask a scientist and you will get completely different opinions. How can that be? Is our data not the same across the board? Perhaps it’s because the data is such an infinitesimal example of our Earth’s existence that we have no real way of knowing about the heating and cooling cycles of the ball we live on.
I will tell you that from my experience on this subject that the green referendum and movement that is surfacing seems to me to be more about making a profit on people’s fears than on actually doing something for our , what some people think, fragile environment. I’m sorry but CFL’s are a waste of money and technology. What will we do with the massive amounts of mercury that will be building from these bulbs going into our landfills? Mercury is one of the most toxic elements on Earth to humans and yet this goes totally unchecked. I am looking forward to initiating the first class action lawsuit when this reality comes to fruition and mark my words, if the ozone doesn’t disappear and we don’t fry up like apple fritters this will happen.
You may have figured out what side of the fence I’m on with this issue. You would know because I am really not lobbying for the green movement. The other opinion I hold is that we are so insignificant to our Earth that it makes no real difference if we use corn to power our cars or hydrocarbons; what will be will be. The other thing that helps me with my feelings about this issue is I know in my heart I am only a temporary resident of this ball we live on. I know there are bigger and better things awaiting me and they don’t include forks made from potatoes.
Now I am not advocating that we are irresponsible tenants of this planet. What I am saying is we can be responsible about keeping things as clean as possible and not leaving behind a worse planet than we were handed and we can do it without all the hype and fear mongering that this green movement spews forth. We simply need to temper these initiatives with common sense and forward thinking and be aware that many of these green products will indeed hold unintended consequences if they are not fully researched before they are mandated upon us all!
The question you may ask, if you’re still reading, is this; Does global warming exist? The really curious thing about this is that scientists on a global spectrum differ about it. Some say we are actually experiencing global cooling while some say we are doomed to the ozone dissolving up and our existence as humans will be snuffed out. Now ask a scientist and you will get completely different opinions. How can that be? Is our data not the same across the board? Perhaps it’s because the data is such an infinitesimal example of our Earth’s existence that we have no real way of knowing about the heating and cooling cycles of the ball we live on.
I will tell you that from my experience on this subject that the green referendum and movement that is surfacing seems to me to be more about making a profit on people’s fears than on actually doing something for our , what some people think, fragile environment. I’m sorry but CFL’s are a waste of money and technology. What will we do with the massive amounts of mercury that will be building from these bulbs going into our landfills? Mercury is one of the most toxic elements on Earth to humans and yet this goes totally unchecked. I am looking forward to initiating the first class action lawsuit when this reality comes to fruition and mark my words, if the ozone doesn’t disappear and we don’t fry up like apple fritters this will happen.
You may have figured out what side of the fence I’m on with this issue. You would know because I am really not lobbying for the green movement. The other opinion I hold is that we are so insignificant to our Earth that it makes no real difference if we use corn to power our cars or hydrocarbons; what will be will be. The other thing that helps me with my feelings about this issue is I know in my heart I am only a temporary resident of this ball we live on. I know there are bigger and better things awaiting me and they don’t include forks made from potatoes.
Now I am not advocating that we are irresponsible tenants of this planet. What I am saying is we can be responsible about keeping things as clean as possible and not leaving behind a worse planet than we were handed and we can do it without all the hype and fear mongering that this green movement spews forth. We simply need to temper these initiatives with common sense and forward thinking and be aware that many of these green products will indeed hold unintended consequences if they are not fully researched before they are mandated upon us all!
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