Saturday, November 26, 2011
Thursday, November 24, 2011
Real Live Preacher
I believe love is primarily a choice and only sometimes a feeling. If you want to feel love, choose to love and be patient.
Robert Wilensky
"We've heard that a million monkeys at a million keyboards could produce the complete works of Shakespeare; now, thanks to the Internet, we know that is not true."
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Visiting Soon-to-be Closed Post Offices in the United States
As the death march of the United States Postal Service continues, Evan Kalish of Going Postal blog is doing his best to visit and document the post offices that are slated to be closed. So far, he's visited 2,745 post offices in 43 states.
This one above is in Junedale, Pennsylvania, and sadly it has a common tale:
The town is just south of Hazleton, which itself is near the intersection of Interstates 80 and 81 in northeast PA. This was a meaningful visit for me; there was a local resident in the office who detailed to me the story of the beautiful landscaping in front of the post office.
Three years ago this post office looked very different. A local Boy Scout earned his Eagle Award for providing community service. What did he do? He fixed up the front of the post office and made it beautiful.
First up: You see the trees and roses out front? This Eagle Scout planted them. The rock gardens? Also his work. If you look closely, you can see a bench right below the sign between the trees. Guess who built it! Yep, he did. He donated the new Junedale Post Office sign as well. Isn't it fantastic?
By my understanding, the final item was to extend the flag pole. Literally, he made it taller. Why? The Postmaster told me that it's because the flag used to drag on the roof of the post office. Now it waves without interference. (It wasn't windy when I arrived there, so we couldn't really see it in action; but we can see how it clears the roof, right?)
This is one anecdote that demonstrates the social importance of the post office to small communities such as Junedale across the country. Even though it's the only business in town, residents sure take pride in it. Outside the post office, when I was taking these photos, I told a resident "I hope you can keep this office open." Her response: "We do, too."
Rural communities across America are experiencing the indignity of being exposed to boilerplate 'public meetings' wherein they're basically informed that the decision has been made to close their post office. According to a resident I asked outside this post office, the public meeting felt canned and the residents felt the decision had already been made to close their office. This story was repeated to me in small towns all across Pennsylvania this weekend. Every single time I asked, I got back the exact same response.
Closing a local post office, especially in rural towns, can have repercussions far beyond just having to drive a bit further to another facility to send your mail - these post offices are often the heart of the community, sort of a de facto town center where people connect with each other.
The sad part? Even closing all of the local post offices aren't going to come close to solving the financial woes of the USPS. Josh Sanburn of TIME Magazine explains:
"Closing post offices has almost nothing to do with the financial problem that the postal service finds itself in today," says Hutkins, founder of savethepostoffice.com. "Virtually nothing. The cost of operating these post offices and the amount of money that will be saved by closing them is minuscule in the context of the budget of the postal service and the deficit that it's running." [...]
By the USPS's calculations, closing all the 3,650 post offices up for review would save just $200 million, or 2% of the deficit of about $10 billion. But it would also eliminate thousands of jobs. "This is a problem I really struggle with because it seems so irrational," Hutkins says.
Links: Going Postal blog and How the U.S. Postal Service Fell Apart over at TIME
Previously on Neatorama: USPS Rescue Plan: More Junk Mail! | US Postal Service: Is Collapse Imminent?
http://www.neatorama.com/2011/11/18/visiting-soon-to-be-closed-post-offices-in-the-united-states/
Sunday, November 20, 2011
George Washington
Government is not reason; it is not eloquence; it is force! Like fire, it is a dangerous servant, and a fearful master.
-George Washington
Reggie Leach
Success is not the result of spontaneous combustion. You must set yourself on fire.
-Reggie Leach
Joe Martin
The most overlooked advantage to owning a computer is that if they foul up there's no law against wacking them around a little.
-Joe Martin
Friday, November 18, 2011
Visiting Soon-to-be Closed Post Offices in the United States
As the death march of the United States Postal Service continues, Evan Kalish of Going Postal blog is doing his best to visit and document the post offices that are slated to be closed. So far, he's visited 2,745 post offices in 43 states.
This one above is in Junedale, Pennsylvania, and sadly it has a common tale:
The town is just south of Hazleton, which itself is near the intersection of Interstates 80 and 81 in northeast PA. This was a meaningful visit for me; there was a local resident in the office who detailed to me the story of the beautiful landscaping in front of the post office.
Three years ago this post office looked very different. A local Boy Scout earned his Eagle Award for providing community service. What did he do? He fixed up the front of the post office and made it beautiful.
First up: You see the trees and roses out front? This Eagle Scout planted them. The rock gardens? Also his work. If you look closely, you can see a bench right below the sign between the trees. Guess who built it! Yep, he did. He donated the new Junedale Post Office sign as well. Isn't it fantastic?
By my understanding, the final item was to extend the flag pole. Literally, he made it taller. Why? The Postmaster told me that it's because the flag used to drag on the roof of the post office. Now it waves without interference. (It wasn't windy when I arrived there, so we couldn't really see it in action; but we can see how it clears the roof, right?)
This is one anecdote that demonstrates the social importance of the post office to small communities such as Junedale across the country. Even though it's the only business in town, residents sure take pride in it. Outside the post office, when I was taking these photos, I told a resident "I hope you can keep this office open." Her response: "We do, too."
Rural communities across America are experiencing the indignity of being exposed to boilerplate 'public meetings' wherein they're basically informed that the decision has been made to close their post office. According to a resident I asked outside this post office, the public meeting felt canned and the residents felt the decision had already been made to close their office. This story was repeated to me in small towns all across Pennsylvania this weekend. Every single time I asked, I got back the exact same response.
Closing a local post office, especially in rural towns, can have repercussions far beyond just having to drive a bit further to another facility to send your mail - these post offices are often the heart of the community, sort of a de facto town center where people connect with each other.
The sad part? Even closing all of the local post offices aren't going to come close to solving the financial woes of the USPS. Josh Sanburn of TIME Magazine explains:
"Closing post offices has almost nothing to do with the financial problem that the postal service finds itself in today," says Hutkins, founder of savethepostoffice.com. "Virtually nothing. The cost of operating these post offices and the amount of money that will be saved by closing them is minuscule in the context of the budget of the postal service and the deficit that it's running." [...]
By the USPS's calculations, closing all the 3,650 post offices up for review would save just $200 million, or 2% of the deficit of about $10 billion. But it would also eliminate thousands of jobs. "This is a problem I really struggle with because it seems so irrational," Hutkins says.
Links: Going Postal blog and How the U.S. Postal Service Fell Apart over at TIME
Previously on Neatorama: USPS Rescue Plan: More Junk Mail! | US Postal Service: Is Collapse Imminent?
http://www.neatorama.com/2011/11/18/visiting-soon-to-be-closed-post-offices-in-the-united-states/
Eleanor Roosevelt
You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, 'I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.' You must do the thing you think you cannot do.
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Helen Hayes
Every human being on this earth is born with a tragedy, and it isn't original sin. He's born with the tragedy that he has to grow up. That he has to leave the nest, the security, and go out to do battle. He has to lose everything that is lovely and fight for a new loveliness of his own making, and it's a tragedy. A lot of people don't have the courage to do it.
Robin Green and Mitchell Burgess
Time is just something that we assign. You know, past, present, it's just all arbitrary. Most Native Americans, they don't think of time as linear; in time, out of time, I never have enough time, circular time, the Stevens wheel. All moments are happening all the time.
http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/Robin_Green_and_Mitchell_Burgess
Harriet Martineau
You better live your best and act your best and think your best today, for today is the sure preparation for tomorrow and all the other tomorrows that follow
Jose Ortega y Gasset
We distinguish the excellent man from the common man by saying that the former is the one who makes great demands upon himself, and the latter who makes no demands on himself.
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Albert Einstein
The significant problems we have cannot be solved at the same level of thinking with which we created them.
-Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein
A photograph never grows old. You and I change, people change all through the months and years, but a photograph always remains the same. How nice to look at a photograph of mother or father taken many years ago. You see them as you remember them. But as people live on, they change completely. That is why I think a photograph can be kind.
-Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein
You see, wire telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this? And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they receive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat.
-Albert Einstein, when asked to describe radio
Albert Einstein
If a cluttered desk signs a cluttered mind, Of what, then, is an empty desk a sign?
-Albert Einstein.
Thursday, November 10, 2011
And now... a word... from Ben Stein:
I am a Jew, and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish. And it does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautiful lit up, bejeweled trees, Christmas trees. I don't feel threatened. I don't feel discriminated against. That's what they are, Christmas trees.
It doesn't bother me a bit when people say, 'Merry Christmas' to me. I don't think they are slighting me or getting ready to put me in a ghetto. In fact, I kind of like it. It shows that we are all brothers and sisters celebrating this happy time of year. It doesn't bother me at all that there is a manger scene on display at a key intersection near my beach house in Malibu . If people want a creche, it's just as fine with me as is the Menorah a few hundred yards away.
I don't like getting pushed around for being a Jew, and I don't think Christians like getting pushed around for being Christians. I think people who believe in God are sick and tired of getting pushed around, period. I have no idea where the concept came from, that America is an explicitly atheist country. I can't find it in the Constitution and I don't like it being shoved down my throat.
Or maybe I can put it another way: where did the idea come from that we should worship celebrities and we aren't allowed to worship God ? I guess that's a sign that I'm getting old, too. But there are a lot of us who are wondering where these celebrities came from and where the America we knew went to.
In light of the many jokes we send to one another for a laugh, this is a little different: This is not intended to be a joke; it's not funny, it's intended to get you thinking.
Billy Graham's daughter was interviewed on the Early Show and Jane Clayson asked her 'How could God let something like this happen?' (regarding Hurricane Katrina).. Anne Graham gave an extremely profound and insightful response. She said, 'I believe God is deeply saddened by this, just as we are, but for years we've been telling God to get out of our schools, to get out of our government and to get out of our lives. And being the gentleman He is, I believe He has calmly backed out. How can we expect God to give us His blessing and His protection if we demand He leave us alone?'
In light of recent events... terrorists attack, school shootings, etc. I think it started when Madeleine Murray O'Hare (she was murdered, her body found a few years ago) complained she didn't want prayer in our schools, and we said OK. Then someone said you better not read the Bible in school. The Bible says thou shalt not kill; thou shalt not steal, and love your neighbor as yourself. And we said OK.
Then Dr. Benjamin Spock said we shouldn't spank our children when they misbehave, because their little personalities would be warped and we might damage their self-esteem (Dr. Spock's son committed suicide). We said an expert should know what he's talking about. And we said okay.
Now we're asking ourselves why our children have no conscience, why they don't know right from wrong, and why it doesn't bother them to kill strangers, their classmates, and themselves.
Probably, if we think about it long and hard enough, we can figure it out. I think it has a great deal to do with 'WE REAP WHAT WE SOW.'
Funny how simple it is for people to trash God and then wonder why the world's going to hell. Funny how we believe what the newspapers say, but question what the Bible says. Funny how you can send 'jokes' through e-mail and they spread like wildfire, but when you start sending messages regarding the Lord, people think twice about sharing. Funny how lewd, crude, vulgar and obscene articles pass freely through cyberspace, but public discussion of God is suppressed in the school and workplace.
Are you laughing yet?
Funny how when you forward this message, you will not send it to many on your address list because you're not sure what they believe, or what they will think of you for sending it.
Funny how we can be more worried about what other people think of us than what God thinks of us.
Pass it on if you think it has merit.
If not, then just discard it.... no one will know you did. But, if you discard this thought process, don't sit back and complain about what bad shape the world is in.
My Best Regards, Honestly and respectfully,
Ben Stein
(thanks to John Borgsdorf fb post)
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
BofA is backpedaling on debit card charges
Bank of America is backpedaling on charging for use of debit card (monthly charges). Note: watch for sneakier charges.
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