People Make the Difference

THIS IS THE Age of the Supercomputer. Collecting data is a big part of this revolution. This is the 21st Century and technology has made the impossible possible.

Most people have embraced this “world of information technology” and they realize their expectations of privacy have been reduced. In this evil world, you can’t be 100% safe and remain 100% private.

Most people can’t live without their smartphones, Facebook, Twitter, texting, Internet dating, GPS, shopping on eBay and amazon.com and they can’t leave home without 10 credit cards. Our lives are an open book.

With that in mind, people are still shocked when their privacy is lost.

OLD GLORY IS something special — the living symbol of our great land. At a time when radical Muslims riot and kill after reports of the Koran being abused, where’s the outrage when the American flag is being burned and when suicide bombers kill innocent men, women and children while holding the Koran?

While Americans justify our intervention in world squabbles as “defending the defenseless and working toward peace,” our enemies see our diplomatic and military action as unwelcome intervention.

With Friday, June 14, being Flag Day, I’d like to repeat for you this essay titled, “I Am Your Flag.” We need to remind people around the world what the American flag stands for and then it is our obligation to make sure that what our country does remains worthy of the respect.

“I was born on June 14, 1777. I am more than just cloth shaped

MILLIONS OF Americans believe they are lawn care and landscaping experts. If you are one of those green thumbs, you think you know what’s better than the age-tested work of Mother Nature.
Many of us marvel at the job Mother Nature does each season, and how everything that happens has a purpose, but that doesn’t stop us from trying to make our own little patch of Earth just a little bit better.
In pursuit of perfection, we’ll spend lots of time and money tending our land, but in doing so we might be missing a few of nature’s basic rules.

A SKEPTIC WOULD blame it on President Obama. You know, when you say one thing but it really means something else. It’s a skill honed by all politicians.

Joe Schackelman, publisher of the Labor Paper, has collected a list of things men say, but not anyone I know. Included with each saying is what they really mean. The list was compiled about five years ago.

I’m going fishing. Really means, “I’m going to drink myself dangerously stupid and stand by a stream with a stick in my hand, while the fish swim by in complete safety.”

Woman driver. Really means, “Someone who doesn’t

MONDAY IS Memorial Day, a day we honor the memory of those men and women who went off to war, never to return. It is also a time to remember the families of those heroes, and the sacrifices they made for our freedoms.

How did our observance of Memorial Day begin?

About 150 years ago, in 1863, America was in the midst of the most painful time in history — the Civil War.

On the site of a bloody battle, on the outskirts of Columbus, Miss., a group of women walked among the fresh graves. They carried

WHEN THE TIME comes for you to leave this Earth, how will you want to be remembered? I have read several answers to this question. Here is what Julie Johnson of Lapeer, Mich., said in the mid 1980s.

“The day will come when I die. At a certain moment a doctor will determine that my brain has ceased to function and that, for all intents and purposes, my life has stopped.

“When that happens, do not attempt to install artificial life into my body by the use of a machine.

“Don’t call this my denial. Let it be called the Bed

WITH MOTHER’S DAY this Sunday, I’d like to share with you an essay titled “A Parable of Motherhood,” written by the late Temple Bailey. Bailey was an American author and short-story writer of renown. She wrote this parable in 1933 for Good Housekeeping magazine.

The young mother set her foot on the path of life. “Is this the long way?” she asked.

And the guide said, “Yes, and the way is hard. And you will be old before you reach the end of it. But the end will be better than the beginning.”

But the young mother was happy and she

THE FOUNDATION, the strength, the goodness of any club or organization is the individual member. That member is the key to the organization’s growth and service.

Edward Cadman, Wena­tchee, Wash., president of Rotary International about 20 years ago, wrote the following message to Rotarians worldwide titled “You are the Key.” I would like to reprint it here for your consideration.

The message is applicable to any situation, whether it be a service club, business or family. It is also true about any team sport that depends on individual members working as a unit.

Cadman says: “In the construction of a bridge

“WE LIVE IN a culture that worships comfort. During this century we have seen the greatest assault on discomfort in the history of the human race.”

This was written by author Edwin Bliss in his book “Doing It Now.” The time management specialist and business consultant published the book in 1984. Here are more excerpts from the book that may have served as a warning.

“We have learned to control our

FOR THE YEAR 1977, government spending, federal, state and local, averaged $9,607 for each household. That was 47% of the average income of the nation’s 74.5 million households, which was $20,400.

That figure was deemed “astonishing” by industrialist Willard Rockwell, Jr., chairman of the board of Rockwell International. He was also chairman of the board of trustees of the Tax Foundation. What word or description would Rockwell and the Tax Foundation use today to describe the level of government spending? It seems the size of government spending has astonished us for a very long time.

The following financial information was taken from a column written