My square foot

A person's mind wanders now and then. Sitting here doing much of nothing, it occurred to me that a cubic foot of air is anything but empty. This is, of course, something a boy in a green field of grass thinks about as clouds tumble and roll overhead. Grown men are not supposed to have such vacant thoughts. But, alas, I do.

A cube of air contains, first of all, oxygen, hydrogen and water. If I were to put a radio in the cube, it would receive tens of thousands of radio signals from around the world. If I put my television set in the same cube it receive a like number of tv signals. And what about smog? A cube of air would also have trace elements of everything we lump together and call smog.

Oh damn. Smog brings up another thought. We live in air. Air surrounds the earth. As we travel away from the earth's surface, air gets thinner until there is none. Does this mean that our atmosphere (air) never leaves the vicinity of the earth? If that is so are we, you and I, breathing air that has been here forever? Is it the same air that the dinosaurs breathed a long time ago? If not, where does air go? How is it replaced? Does it return to water? Is it regenerated by it's entry into plant root systems, passing through the stem or trunk and exhaled by the leaves?

Ah, but let's get back to our theoretical foot square cube of air. When someone yells across the room sound passes through our cube. In fact, the cube contains part of all the sounds around a person. Listen. The phone rings. A foot scuffs on the carpet. Someone asks a question. There is a vague roar coming from the freeway several blocks distant. A car horn honks. A fire truck leaves the station with siren going. Someone shuts a door. All of these sounds are in the cube of air at least for an instant.


Okay. Micro-instant.

Doesn't it boggle the mind to accept that there are, at any given moment, billions or even trillions of e-mail messages in every cubic foot of air?

No so funny cartooonist

I went to Borders Outlet Bookstore and bought a slim volume by Ted Rall with "Afghanistan" in the title. I bought it because it was small, nicely bound and cheap. It cost a whole dollar. I've since read a chapter and discovered the book would have been a total waste of money except for it's perspective on how far left liberal Americans think.

The author is intelligent, but from the first paragraph his anti-American bias is crystal clear. By the second he's off on an rant establishing his credentials as an pure nut-case. Mr. Rall tries to be an "intellectual". He considers his abilities to be on the same level as Gore Vidal, or Christopher Hitchens for example. . He fails completely.

Before reaching the third chapter Mr. Rall has pointed out that EVERYTHING wrong with the world is George W. Bush's fault. He thinks there is a deep and dark conspiracy behind every reported disaster. He sincerely believes the uprising of radical Islam was caused by President Bush, who bombed them for no good reason at all.

Mr. Rall is especially upset with Israel because America help them defend themselves from Muslim terrorists. Hows that for logic. Wait, it gets worse. He complains that Islamic people everywhere are fed up and tired of American's using modern weapons against them because it's just not fair. He says that Muslims regard all American aircraft bombing as being directed at women, children and the elderly.

This kind of rubbish sets Mr. Rall's stage for saying that the middle-eastern conflict has nothing to do with:

• Saddam Hussein,
• The brutality of a tyrant,
• The evil schools of radical Islam,
• The civilian targets of radical Islam,
• The deranged Mullah's preaching of hate,
• The increasing number of suicide bombers,
• The raging anti-Semitism of desert Arabs, or
• The long standing inter-tribal arguments in the region.

These are (according to Mr. Rall) simply excuses.

According to this self appointed foreign affairs expert, , the reason America attacked Muslim fanatics in Afghanistan, and then later in Iraq, is solely because of oil. He believes: "THE POWER MAD "BUSH-CHENEY-RICE-RUMSFELD" CABAL LIED TO THE WORLD SO THEY COULD GO TO WAR IN THEIR PURSUIT OF OIL PROFITS".

Blaming ALL of the mid-east's problems on OIL is disappointingly stupid. Of course OIL is the most important commodity in the middle east, and the single most important factor of geopolitics in the entire region. So what. Of course OIL was an influence in the decision to go to war - but Mr. Rall has conveniently forgotten: (1) The increasing belligerence of several governments in the area,(2) the growing danger to Israel, (3) the promises of murder and violence to Americans and their friends,(4) the fast moving intolerance of Islam, (5) the threatened disruption of the western world's oil supply, and (6) the proclaimed pursuit of nuclear weapons. ALL of these elements led to the war.

Anyone want a slim volume of rubbish?

END

Down and out

Where do young people learn right from wrong?

Most new parents are 20 to 30 years old. Their learning experience began about 1980 and continued to 2000. In that span of twenty years parenting was replaced by the "me first" philosophy, and children were turned over to schools for feeding (school breakfasts and lunches), no disipline (most bad behavior was excused), and judgement of merit (that is no longer necessary to attain the next grade level).

These young people passed through high school not knowing our country fought in Korea, how to spell "dictionary", or how to make change for a dollar bill. Then, they grew up to be parents themselves. The result should be no surprise.

Now, their children think of themselves FIRST. They've been taught that they are entitled to a ride a satin pillow through life. Interestingly, they show very little respect for their parents, or the schools, or any authority figures.

Public schools have proved to be a poor substitute for training behavior and setting the guidelines of right and wrong. By losing the work and reward satisdfaction of meritorious achievement to attain advancement, today's students do not graduate prepared for life experiences.

All of which is a tragedy of huge proportions.


Yet Americans still glide blissfully along as our abundance runs out and our much blessed society continues to fail.

We have only to watch the decline of Great Britain to see where we are headed.

END

Old dumb farmers

An old farmer had a large pond on his property. Now and then some kids would play hooky and go for a swim. One boy's older sister found out about the swimming pond and on a very warm afternoon she asked a few friends at work if they'd like to cool off.

They arrived at the pond and having no bathing suits, decided to swim nude. With their clothes dropped on the bank they dove in.

Just then the farmer saw them swimming at the distant pond and walked over. He spotted the clothes on the bank and then said "hi gals, I'm sorry to say that you're going to have to stop swimming now". The naked girls treading water looked at each other. One said "okay, we will leave if you insist, but not before you are out of sight".

The farmer thought for a moment, then told the girls "that will be fine. I just came over to the pond to feed the alligator".

Old farmers aren't dumb.

Bad images worldwide

Will there ever be another Faulty Towers? Is there a spindle-legged Brit in a bowler that can actually put his elbow in his ear like John Cleese did? Just thinking about some of the Faulty Towers images brings a chuckle to the surface.

I was thinking about this last evening while channel surfing and finding station after station showing programs unsuitable for public showing. "Aha!" you say, another prudish censor advocate. No, I don't think so. Isn't it possible that the pendulum has swung too far toward violence and pornography on television? Is sex and carnage the only thing Americans think about?

For me it's not an uplifting experience to sit on the couch with my grand children and scan channel after channel of nude, provocative, soft porn stuff interspersed with crashes of all kinds with bodies strewn about the landscape. Adding to the delight is more boob-tube trash mixed with the carnage and gore of the war? Guns. Killing. Bombs. Slit throats. Criminals. Violence. Drugs.

These are the images of America that are infesting the world television market place. Do you remember when people visualized America as "John Wayne on a horse high in the far country looking over a fertile green valley and wondering where the Indians might be". Not any more. These western images have been replaced by Paris Hilton, surgery on TV, sex in the city, rap idiots, and graphic images death and destruction.

These images have distorted the America shown to the world. We are no longer the benevolent and charitible citizens on the hill. We are now pictured as the scum in the gutter.

Can we change the image?

There really is an America with values, standards, ethics, moral standards and decency.

END

Alexander Botts

Alexander Botts sold Earthworm tractors and wrote a report to his boss after every business day. He was a traveling salesman and his customers were in small towns all over America. The reports describing his failures and successes are hilarious. They describe small town life in America and a time that has now gone by never to return.

The collected reports read like letters. They have been cleverly bound into small books that are plain, not fancy, but very funny.

Behind the text is an indelible picture of small town America brilliantly mixed with subtle humor that quietly creeps up on the reader and results in a chuckle every time. And sometimes a kind of silent laugh, and now and then a belly whopper-knee slapper.

I suppose Alexander Botts books have been long out of print, but if you ever spot one on somebodies library shelf . . . grab it. You'll be glad you did.

Motorcycle For The Old Coot

It's a happy day in bloggerland. The old guy got himself a two wheeled refresher course in survival. If he doesn't croak before he retires, there's going to be rubber laid on the streets of Tustin.

Whoopee! 70 minus 52 don't he wish.