Unemployment and Recovery

This is not nearly as the media work of racy and volatile FoxNews and the like. In fact, it's rational.

John Denver: The Lord's Prayer

Please watch this.

One out of Every Third Bite...

I ripped this off of a National Wildlife Federation email because, well, I didn't know one out of every third bit of food comes to us thanks to pollinators and on the off chance you didn't know that either, I thought I'd put it out there.

Did you know that one out of every third bite of food comes to us thanks to pollinators? From beautiful butterflies to busy bees, it’s clear that pollinators are essential to life on our planet.

But, declines in pollinators in North America and around the world pose what could be a significant threat to biodiversity, global food webs and human health.

Help pollinators in your neighborhood during National Pollinator Week (June 22-28) by taking one or more of these five simple actions:

	1. Use Native Plants
	2. Hang Hummingbird Feeders
	3. Build a Bee House
	4. Plant a Butterfly Garden
	5. Certify Your Yard with National Wildlife Federation

Live the Code

Do you live by The Code? Recite The Code every day? Earn Code coupons so you can win yourself a Code hat or mug?

What? You don't know about The Code?

Let me tell you:

"I am safe, responsible, respectful prepared."

The administrators of my daughter's elementary school have drilled this thing into the kids' heads for the past few years. It's the ungradeable character stuff that parents should teach but often don't so that teachers wind up with behavior problems. It's a project driven by good intentions that leaves the ordinary brain aching.

The school is not exactly teeming with bank robbers and gangsters--though there are a few up and coming criminals in the bunch. (Yes, even in this genteel community full of hard working people, there are a few thugs in the making.) Nevertheless, 99.9 percent of the kids have decent parents and behave well. So I am all for letting the children live their lives while the experts reform the criminals. This does not need to be a group project.

One of that future criminal element is my neighbor. Every summer his and his mother's voices punctuate the humid stillness with their catlike screeching: "Why can't you help me?" "Why do you always need help? You know I don't want to do that. Do it yourself!" "Just once: cooperate, please!"

The kid is a brat. B. R. A. T. He treates his mother like garbage.

But life is full of surprises. Don't you know the principal finds him to be a boy who lives The Code. In fact, she told a gathering of the student body that he was so good he changed a life at school. So impressed was the principal by this remarkable child's behavior that she awarded him four (count 'em) coffee mugs for him and his family because it takes a family to create such a good person.

No way, I thought. No way, no way, no way.

It was hard to sit there in responsible, respectful silence and endure this presentation. I wasn't prepared. I never feel safe around this little creepy kid. But I did endure the ceremony with my mouth closed. Mother raised me that way in a PC (pre-Code) world.

But like I said: No way. But there were the mugs. There was the delusional principal. There was the brat who torments his mother day in and day out--which mother happily dropped him off at school early every day so he could, as the delusional one said, "change a life."

And there he was later that day with his water Uzi shooting at the robins on the sidewalk. A few feet away, his siblings had tied the family dog to a tree and were shooting at him with water with their little toy machine guns.

Today, the first day of summer vacation, I found my daughter cutting up her Code coupons and sticking them in a bag. Why? "I am sick of The Code. I just want to do this."

I let her go. And then I got her some candy to wash away that bitter, lingering first taste of cynicism.

Canada Geese

My May 30 geese update is here.

The Cracked Pot

,

An elderly Chinese woman had two large pots, each hung on the ends of a pole which she carried across her neck.  One of the pots had a crack in it while the other pot was perfect and always delivered a full portion of water.  At the end of the long walks from the stream to the house, the cracked pot arrived only half full. For a full two years this went on daily, with the woman bringing home only one and a half pots of water. 

Of course, the perfect pot was proud of its accomplishments. 

But the poor cracked pot was ashamed of its own imperfection, and miserable that it could only do half of what it had been made to do. After two years of what it perceived to be bitter failure, it spoke to the woman one day by the stream. 'I am ashamed of myself, because this crack in my side causes water to leak out all the way back to your house.' 

The old woman smiled, 'Did you notice that there are flowers on your side of the path, but not on the other pot's side? That's because I have always known about your flaw, so I planted flower seeds on your side of the path, and every day while we walk back, you water them. For two years I have been able to pick these beautiful flowers to decorate the table. Without you being just the way you are, there would not be this beauty to grace the house."

Thanks to dad for this one!

Each of us has our own unique flaw. But it's the cracks and flaws we each have that make our lives together so very interesting and rewarding.  You've just got to take each person for what they are and look for the good in them. So, to all of my crackpot friends, have a great day and remember to smell the flowers on your side of the path!