It is always hard to know when you donate money if it is being using properly. Here are some useful guidelines It also lists some charities to give to, and a few to not give to.
When Donations Go Astray – Nicholas Kristof @ The New York Times
Buying Vehicles via Internet
I’ve bought two cars via the Internet now. The first was a used car and the second was a new vehicle.
I found my 2006 Mazda MX-5 on Autotrader.com. It was 9 months old at the time. A guy about my age had it, but was marrying a younger woman with two kids. He needed a family car, and was sadly selling his sports car. She must have been quite a woman. I checked the Carfax report and that came back clean. The car was actually in Albuquerque and I was in St. Louis. However, I have a cousin in Albuquerque who is a car guy and into sports cars. He went by and took a look at the Mazda and drove it, and reassured me that it was in good condition. I made a very good deal with the gentleman because as “they” say he was a very motivated seller. That motivation and the fact that he had been having a hard time finding a buyer worked in my favor. I hopped on a plane, Continue reading “Buying Vehicles via Internet”
“Sometimes anal is good”
We had a minor crisis at work. I work on the Oracle HRMS system for a utility. After applying a patch and upgrade we could not transfer the time from the time card system over to the Payroll system. People like to get paid so we were more than a little motivated to get it fixed.
We gathered together as a team to work on the problem which took more than a few hours to fix. People were getting somewhat tense. Programmers as a group are on the OCD side and when we get stressed it tends to bring out this side even more.
Somebody wanted to double check something a different way. He apologized for being anal, but he said he needed to do this.
I remarked that, “Sometimes anal is good.”
The room all of sudden got real quite.
I realized what I had just said.
Huge concentrations of wealth corrodes the soul of any nation
A couple quotes from the Nicholas Kristof editoral linked to below:
A Hedge Fund Republic? Nicholas Kristof in the New York Times
“But there is also a larger question: What kind of a country do we aspire to be? Would we really want to be the kind of plutocracy where the richest 1 percent possesses more net worth than the bottom 90 percent?’
“I’m appalled by our growing wealth gaps because in my travels I see what happens in dysfunctional countries where the rich just don’t care about those below the decks. The result is nations without a social fabric or sense of national unity. Huge concentrations of wealth corrode the soul of any nation.”
I’ve been watching and crying over this growing problem for years. Part of me just cannot understand how in a democratic society where the vast majority of folks are in the middle and lower economic classes this happened. After all 9 to 1 should win ever time, right?
In large part it has happened because both political parties are unabashedly junkies when it comes to financing political campaigns. Continue reading “Huge concentrations of wealth corrodes the soul of any nation”
Parenting – An Addiction
Well this pretty much explains why we do such a crazy thing as have kids…
“Shankar Vedantam of Slate hypothesizes that people continue to procreate, despite overwhelming evidence that parenting isn’t very fun, for much the same reason that cocaine users can’t quit: they’re addicts.”
See link below.
Oración de la Serenidad
Dios concédeme la serenidad para aceptar las cosas que no puedo cambiar.
Valor para cambiar aquellas que puedo.
Y sabiduría para reconocer la diferencia.
The Tradition Continues
When my kids were in grade school, I would occasionally have them do “book reports” for various reasons. They were never very happy when I assigned them one, but they did do them…grudgingly. My daughter is much older now and she seems to have fond memories of doing the book reports, at least a few of them.
David and his family visited us recently in St. Louis. David and Brandie were determined to not waste a moment of the weekend and we visited many of the sites in town including the Arch. In the gift shop at the Arch they had a place mat with all the presidents on it. I purchased one, I though for me. The grand-kids made such a fuss over the place mat that I gave it to them with the stipulation they give me a book report on a president whenever their report cards came out. The tradition continues.
I am still waiting for Jordon’s report. Below is Teagan’s report. Continue reading “The Tradition Continues”
Your Itemized Tax Bill
For Whom the Law Tolls
For while this year it may be a Catholic against whom the finger of suspicion is pointed, in other years it has been, and may someday be again, a Jew- or a Quaker or a Unitarian or a Baptist. It was Virginia’s harassment of Baptist preachers, for example, that helped lead to Jefferson’s statute of religious freedom. Today I may be the victim, but tomorrow it may be you – until the whole fabric of our harmonious society is ripped at a time of great national peril.
-Presidential candidate John F. Kennedy, September 12, 1960
The local Jewish community newspaper in St. Louis ran the following editorial. It was triggered by Oklahoma passing a constitutional amendment banning judges from considering Sharia (and international laws) in their judicial opinions. The editoralist does not see a lot of legal danger from this amendment, but finds the attitude behind the passing of the amendment very dangerous.
The link: For Whom the Law Tolls
I’m just so proud to be an Okie…not.
The Itch
Once upon a time lived a beautiful Queen with large breasts.
Ted the Dragon Slayer obsessed over the Queen for this reason.
He knew that the penalty for his desire would be death should he try to touch them, but he had to try.
One day Ted revealed his secret desire to his colleague, Horatio the Physician, the King’s chief doctor.
Horatio thought about this and said that he could arrange for Ted to more than satisfy his desire, Continue reading “The Itch”