Skip to main content

Sometimes I Wonder



Here are a few stories from today’s local newspaper:

“Suspect in bat assault case headed to trial.” A homeowner caught a thief going through his (the homeowner’s) van, and hit the thief with a baseball bat. The homeowner is going to trial. The thief pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor.

“Marshals, police nab city woman.” Twice she tried to run them down with her car, then started punching them.

“Marietta man charged with raping child.” Needs no explanation.

”U.S. call driving while distracted an ‘epidemic.’” Again no explanation needed.

I was beginning to think the SETI searchers (see 9/27 blog) should be trying to find signs of intelligent life on earth. Then I came across the following letter to the editor:

“Day of Caring volunteers energetic, inspiring.” This is a thank you letter to 3,100 local volunteers who took part in United Way of Lancaster’s 18th annual Day of Caring. Among many other things they weatherized the home of a local soldier, scrubbed graffiti off a park pavilion and prepared 1,300 sandwiches for a Thank You Picnic. It restored some of my hope for the human race.
As long as there are people like this, the SETI searchers can stay with their original objective.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

There Are Only Seven Jokes - Introduction

      The statement “There are only seven jokes – all the rest are variations,” has been around for a long time, but no one ever seems to know what the original seven are. I think I have found the solution to the mystery.       The answer is to be found in an article published in the New York Times on May 2, 1909. Entitled “New Jokes? There Are No New Jokes, There Is Only One Joke,” it goes on to say that all jokes are a distortion, and lists seven categories of distortion. Supposedly every joke will fit into one of the categories. I believe that repetition changed the seven categories into the seven jokes.       Each of my next seven blogs will be devoted to exploring one of the categories. In addition, I shall attempt to give an example or two of jokes which I think fit the category.       You must realize that this article appeared over one hundred years ago, so most of the jokes appearing therein are so out-of-date that modern readers wouldn’t even understand them. For example,
Post a Comment
Read more

By Today’s Standards Many of my Teachers Would be in Jail

I started school in a two-room building: grades 1 to 4 in one room; grades 5 to 8 in the other. One teacher in each room taught all four grades. I don’t remember first grade very well – the teacher left at the end of the year. I am pretty sure it was not my fault. Now keep in mind that reading the Bible every morning was the standard for all grades at that time. But my teacher in grades two to four went a little above and beyond the normal practice. As a member of a “plain” sect, she considered it her duty to lead the little heathens to Christianity. She offered a free Bible to all students who managed to memorize 20 verses. I memorized my verses – “Jesus saves” was my favorite because it was the shortest – and got my Bible with my twenty underlined in red. That would be illegal today (not the underlining), and rightly so. Teachers may not teach religion, although contrary to what many folks seem to think, students may bring their Bibles to school, read them, and pray their
Post a Comment
Read more
The National Anthem I have a somewhat minor pet peeve. I say minor because in the grand scheme of things neither I nor society will do anything substantive about it, so my best bet is probably to suck it up and move on. Perhaps after writing about it I can lay it to rest. It came up recently while I was working out at our Wellness Center. A program on television was playing America The Beautiful , and I remarked to a lady I have known for 40 years that I thought that should be the National Anthem instead of The Star Spangled Banner. She replied, rather huffily, I thought, “Some people think God Bless America should be the national anthem.” At that point I decided, wisely, I think, to back off before an argument sprang up. Now I realize that The Star Spangled Banner is a very nice, patriotic song, but an anthem it is not. According to Wikipedia, “ An anthem is a  musical composition  of celebration, usually used as a symbol for a distinct group, particularly the  nationa
Post a Comment
Read more