Thursday Thoughts, October 14th

I had to go give blood the other morning. That is not one of my favorite chores, but it's not usually something to dread -'not usually' being the operative words.  This time, I knew I was in trouble when a very cute, perky young technician (side note: why is it that the older I get, the younger they seem to get?) came up to me, smiled from ear to ear and said: "Hi, my name is Dianne and I am a trainee. I am going to draw your blood this morning." Then, leaning forward and whispering conspiratorially she said: "That is, if it is all right with you. If not, you can ask for another girl if you like..." I smiled and while my brain said "Damned Right!" -my mouth said "No, I'm sure you'll do fine". --I only had to wear the bandage for a day....

 

And I thought I had problems.... An Arizona woman accidentally glued an eye shut when she mistook super glue for her eye drops. KSAZ-TV said Irmgard Holm of Glendale had cataract surgery a year ago. She was reaching for what she thought was one of her half-dozen eye drop medications. The burning sensation told her immediately something was seriously wrong. Holm said the eye drops and the super glue bottles are nearly identical. After putting super glue in her eye, Holm says she tried washing it out. But the quick-drying substance did what it was supposed to and sealed her eye shut. Holm got to the hospital and staff cut off the hardened glue covering her eye. Once the eye was opened, doctors washed it out to prevent major damage.

A Mississippi judge ordered an attorney to spend several hours in jail Wednesday after the attorney chose not to recite the Pledge of Allegiance in court. The Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal reported that Chancery Judge Talmadge Littlejohn told a court audience to rise and say the pledge. People in the courtroom said Danny Lampley of Oxford stood but did not say the words.Wouldn't it be nice to have a few more judges like that...

The "Hope and Change" Administration is starting to play rough. Last week, Vice President of the United States Joe Biden said he wanted to strangle the Republicans. Now his boss is cranking up the violent rhetoric. According to the LA Times, Obama called into Michael Baisden's syndicated radio show and demanded high voter turnout from African-Americans and Latinos in the November midterms. He said of the Republicans, "They are fired up. They are mobilized. They see an opportunity to take back the House, maybe take back the Senate. If they're successful in doing that, they've already said they're going to go back to the same policies that were in place during the Bush administration. That means that we are going to have just hand-to-hand combat up here on Capitol Hill." In case you miss the point here -the President of the United States is saying there's going to be violence unless non-whites vote for Democrats.--Well, here's one guy that "Hopes for Change" (in Administrations)....

 

Forty three years ago this week, Ernesto "Che" Guevara got a major dose of his own medicine. Without trial he was declared a murderer, stood against a wall and shot. Historically speaking, justice has rarely been better served. If the saying "What goes around comes around" ever fit, it's here. "When you saw the beaming look on Che's face as the victims were tied to the stake and blasted apart by the firing squad," said a former Cuban political prisoner Roberto Martin-Perez, "you saw there was something seriously, seriously wrong with Che Guevara." As commander of the La Cabana execution yard, Che often shattered the skull of the condemned man (or boy) by firing the coup de grace himself. When other duties tore him away from his beloved execution yard, he consoled himself by viewing the slaughter. Che's second-story office in Havana’s La Cabana prison had a section of wall torn out so he could watch his darling firing-squads at work.

I watched Glenn Beck yesturday. Glenn is an interesting man. I find myself agreeing with the underlieing tenants of most of his programs but I almost always become uncomfortable when he just takes things a little too far. For example, I agree we need to reconnect with our spiritual side but I actually resent being told how and when I should pray. My relationship with the Almighty is intensly personal and I do not like people sticking their nose into it, and by the same token, I would never dream of judging how another person chooses to worship. He was particularly good today when he was talking about the need to be more tolerant, but I don't think he made the point clearly -he tends to ramble a bit too much for me. He said that he is undergoing some tests for an undetermined medical problem and I sincerely hope this will turn out to be something minor and completely curable.

Live Long and Prosper....