Sunday, August 31, 2014


LABOR DAY POETRY


________ PRIMARY SOURCES ________

Look well upon the men who dig in mines,
And work machines in mills and factories grim.
Be aware that those who tend the vines 
Or till the soil give much for wages slim.
Reaping sowing, weeding, hoeing make
Full the nation’s store of nutriment.
Overland the burly truckers take
Rich provisions and accoutrement
Coast to coast. The teamsters load and haul
Enormous hordes of stuff that we’ve empowered,
Shipped in freighters, stored in silos tall,
Delivered, well-displayed, and then devoured.
Awards are due the goods and who supplies them,
Yet the wise despise the guys who advertise them.

~ FreeThinke - The Sandpiper, Summer, 1996



______ TO THOSE WHO HELP ______

May God bless the practical women and men,
Who rise from the hay every day, and then 
Produce what we need 
Without rancor or greed, 
Make things run, 
Get things done, 
Keep things clean, 
So they're fit to be seen, 
And continuously smooth the way 
So that we may live comfortably every day.

~ FreeThinke - 10/20/11



 ________ STILLNESS ________

No sound beyond the dropping of the leaves
Or shushing in the treetops of the stirring
In the air and periodic whirring
Soft of wings and bundling of sheaves ––

Every now and then a bird may call
Looking for or longing for his mate;
Escaping still the hunter’s dinner plate.
Scythes swish steadily as grain grown tall

Submits to delicate compelling force.
Workers silently bent to their task
Over whom hot sunshine spills its rays

Reap swiftly knowing pain could come, of course.
Later, in the afterglow they’ll bask
Dreaming foolishly of better days.

~ FreeThinke  - 9/21/13 


Saturday, August 30, 2014

Friday, August 29, 2014


THE GREEN THING

Checking out at the store, the young cashier suggested to the much older lady that she should bring her own grocery bags, because plastic bags are not good for the environment.  

The woman apologized to the cashier and explained, "We didn't have this Green Thing back in my earlier days."

The young clerk responded, "That's our problem today. Your generation didn't care enough to save our environment for future generations."

The older woman agreed, and then she said, ”Our generation didn't have “The Green Thing" in its day. She then went on to explain:

“Back then, we returned milk bottles, soda bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over. So they really were recycled. But we didn't have “The Green Thing" in our day.

“Grocery stores bagged our groceries in biodegradable brown paper bags that we reused for numerous purposes. Most memorable besides their holding household garbage brown paper bags were used as covers for our school books. This was to ensure that our sciobblings did not deface public property. [The books were provided by the school and paid for by the local taxpapyers.] Besides, these brown paper covers enabled us to personalize our books any way we liked. But,  wasn’t it too bad we didn't have”The Green Thing" back then?

We walked up stairs, because we didn't have an escalator in every store and office building. We walked to the grocery store, and didn't climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we needed to go two blocks.

But she was right. We didn't have “The Green Thing" in our day.

Back then we washed the baby's diapers because we didn't have the disposable kind. We pinned our dried clothes on a line and dried them outdoors in the fresh air and sunshine, not in energy-gobbling machines. Wind and solar power really did dry our clothes back in our early days. 

Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing.

But, we didn't have “The Green Thing"  in our day.

Back then we had one TV in the house –– not one in every room. And the TV had a screen the size of a handkerchief –– remember that? –– not a screen the size of the state of Montana. 

In the kitchen we blended and stirred mostly by hand because we didn't have electric machines to do everything for us, although I do remember mother using her Sunbeam Mixmaster on rare occasions when she had some large scale baking to do for a church Bazaar, a wedding shower or the annual production of eight or ten different kinds of Christmas cookies she put in tins, gift-wrapped,  and gave to every member of the family and select friends. 

When we packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, we used wadded up newspapers to cushion it, not styrofoam peanuts or plastic bubble wrap. 

Back then, we didn't fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to cut the lawn either. We used a push mower. We exercised by working so we didn't need to go to a gym to run on treadmills powered by electricity.

But, we didn't have “The Green Thing" back then.

We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time we wanted a drink of water. 

We refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying an endless succession of new pens, and we put new blades in a permanent razor instead of throwing away masses of whole razors when the blades get dull. 

But, we didn't have “The Green Thing" back then.

Back then, people took the streetcar or a bus to work or to go downtown to shop, and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of using their mothers as an on call taxi service in the family's van or SUV, which cost what a whole house used to cost before “The Green Thing" came into our lives. 

We generally had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances. And we didn't need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites in outer space in order to locate the nearest ice cream parlor or hamburger joint.

Isn't it ironic how the current generation laments our carelessnes and wastefulness just because we didn't have “The Green Thing" when we were young?

Please forward this on to another selfish old person who needs a lesson in conservation from a young know-it-all.

We don't particularly enjoy being old in the first place, so it doesn't take much to provoke us –– especially from an insolent tattooed punk with spiky, purple and orange-colored hair sporting a rivet in his tongue, who thinks he knows it all, but can't make change without the aid of an automated cash register.

~ A Gift from Mr. & Mrs. Netwitz, edited and embellished by FreeThinke





Wednesday, August 27, 2014

Tuesday, August 26, 2014

MODERN PHENOMENA
Love it or Loathe it, it's Here to Stay




Sunday, August 24, 2014



The Spiritual Search

08/24/2014

What man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? —Matthew 7:9

The illustration of prayer that our Lord used here is one of a good child who is asking for something good. We talk about prayer as if God hears us regardless of what our relationship is to Him (see Matthew 5:45). Never say that it is not God’s will to give you what you ask. Don’t faint and give up, but find out the reason you have not received; increase the intensity of your search and examine the evidence. Is your relationship right with your spouse, your children, and your fellow students? Are you a “good child” in those relationships? Do you have to say to the Lord, “I have been irritable and cross, but I still want spiritual blessings”? You cannot receive and will have to do without them until you have the attitude of a “good child.”
We mistake defiance for devotion, arguing with God instead of surrendering. We refuse to look at the evidence that clearly indicates where we are wrong. Have I been asking God to give me money for something I want, while refusing to pay someone what I owe him? Have I been asking God for liberty while I am withholding it from someone who belongs to me? Have I refused to forgive someone, and have I been unkind to that person? Have I been living as God’s child among my relatives and friends? (see Matthew 7:12).
I am a child of God only by being born again, and as His child I am good only as I “walk in the light” (1 John 1:7). For most of us, prayer simply becomes some trivial religious expression, a matter of mystical and emotional fellowship with God. We are all good at producing spiritual fog that blinds our sight. But if we will search out and examine the evidence, we will see very clearly what is wrong— a friendship, an unpaid debt, or an improper attitude. There is no use praying unless we are living as children of God. Then Jesus says, regarding His children, “Everyone who asks receives . . .” (Matthew 7:8).
Oswald Chambers (1874-1917)


Saturday, August 23, 2014

Thursday, August 21, 2014


A BLACK MAN SPEAKS OUT
Johnathan Gentry

With thanks to Lisa of Who's Your Daddy? 
who presented this the other day,
I happily share Johnathan Gentry's 
most remarkable observations on 

The SITUATION 
in FERGUSON, MISSOURI

 
W-A-R-N-I-N-G
ALL PERSONAL REMARKS ABOUT OTHER BLOGGERS and GRATUITOUS ADVICE ON HOW WE OUGHT TO RUN THIS BLOG WILL BE REMOVED ON SIGHT

Wednesday, August 20, 2014


Food for Thought Not Theatrics

1. We are advised to not judge ALL Muslims by the actions of a few lunatics, but we are encouraged to judge ALL gun owners by the actions of a few lunatics.


2. Seems we constantly hear that Social Security is going to run out of money.  Why don’t we ever hear about welfare or food stamps running out of money?  The first group worked for their money, but the second didn't. Don’t you find that discrepancy odd?


3. Why are we cutting benefits for our veterans, not giving pay raises to our military personnel, and cutting our armed services to levels lower than we had before WWII,  while at the same tie we are not stopping foreign aid to rogue nations or benefits to illegal aliens?

4. Why has the enemedia focused almost exclusively on one admittedly sad, but very small-scale event in Ferguson, Missouri, when the Middle East is erupting with widespread atrocities that led yesterday to the beheading on camera of an American Journalist. Myriad acts of barbarism continue in Africa, Putin is running amok unchallenged in Ukraine, our southern border is still under siege, the IRS Scandal has had no resolution, unanswered questions on Benghazi still abound, Obamacare is a flop and remains a festering thorn in our side, and the VA has yet to improve one iota, and still Ferguson eats up the lion's share of media attention. Does any of this make sense to you?



Tuesday, August 19, 2014




Ferguson
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Monday, August 18, 2014





____ IN MEMORIAM: ROBIN WILLIAMS ____


_________ Staying in Character _________

Endearing, though preposterous, as you were,
Real affection from persona fake
Incredibly, for your dear children’s sake,
Flowed naturally, –– but with a trace of myrrh.
This bitterness directed just toward you
Betrayed your guilt at living past the norm
Usually accepted as good form.
Oh how easily you’d have gotten through
Demands domestic, if you’d just been steady!
Sadly, however, urges wild and heady
Remained in charge, and so your judges ruled
Maturity you lacked. They’d not been fooled.
Only then –– by showing some resolve
Through queer disguise –– did you your problem solve.

A blessing in disguise



__________ Transition _________

Exactly what degree of sheer frustration 
Does it take, when one reaches the top,
Into the thorny depths of desperation
Causing Corey-like the urge to drop?
It seems success, applause and commendation
Unsettle more than they could satisfy.
Steeper grows the way toward relaxation;
Stifling, the climb would breath, itself, deny.
‘Tis not the rich reward of which one dreams.
No no! The price of glory’s much too high.
Inside the soul makes silent piercing screams ––
Bursting at the seams –– longing to die.
O, manic man, why did you fail to thrive?
Reaching out might have kept hope alive.

~ FreeThinke (8/17/14)



Robin Williams (1951-2014)







Saturday, August 16, 2014


AN EXPERIMENT
If you can think of anything pleasant, affirmative and reassuring to say about President Barack Hussein Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama, Secretary of State John Kerry, would-be presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton, Senator Harry Reid, former speaker Nancy Pelosi, current speaker John Boehner or ANY member of the Establishment, please share it with us.

We will accept POSITIVE remarks ONLY. All snide remarks, sneers, taunts, gibes, vilification, barbed questions, and condemnatory rhetoric will be removed.

Monday, August 11, 2014


SWEET ARE THE USES OF INANITY!
June Allyson and Peter Lawford, Good News (1947)
One of the Great Analgesics of All Time

This is the way we were, or at least wanted to be.
Shallow? Inane? Unrealistic? 

YOU BET!

But also a helluva lotta good, clean fun.
Entertainment was once designed to provide ESCAPE from the grim, gray aspects of life. As the USO Tours with Bob Hope and many glamour girls during World War Two proved, healthy doses of light-hearted nonsense did much to boost our troops' morale, and strengthen the War Effort.

Imagine how our soldiers would have responded if Eminem had regaled them with repeated choruses of Shit On You?

I shudder to think.

Sunday, August 10, 2014


MAKE OUR GARDEN GROW
from
Leonard Bernstein’s
CANDIDE

Renee Fleming, Elizabeth Futral, Marilyn Horne, Frederica von Stade, Jerry Hadley, Samuel Ramey, Dwayne Croft sang, "Make Our Garden Grow" from Candide at "A Celebration of the American Musical" concert at Avery Fisher Hall in April of 1997.




Friday, August 8, 2014


Richard M. Nixon
Our 37th President

Succumbed this day, August 8, 1974, because of his astonishing naiveté regarding tapes he believed to be his private property, to mortal wounds inflicted by a fiendish journalistic coup d’etat.







May he rest in peace, and may Posterity someday remember him with the kindness, fairness, generosity and gratitude he certainly deserved, but did not receive in this life.




OLFACTORY FARMS

Not long ago a sensational new supermarket opened 
in Kankakee, Illinois.

It has an automatic water mister to keep the produce fresh.

Just before it goes on, you hear the sound of distant thunder 
and the smell of fresh rain.

When you pass the milk cases, you hear cows mooing 
and experience the scent of new mown hay.

In the meat department the aroma of charcoal grilled steaks 
with onions stimulates your appetite.

When you approach the eggs, you hear hens clucking and cackling, and the air is filled with the pleasing aroma of bacon and eggs frying.

The bread department features the seductive aroma 
of fresh baked bread and cookies.
      
 I don't buy toilet paper there anymore.




Thursday, August 7, 2014



BEHOLD THE OPPOSITION CONSERVATIVES FACE

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