Now don't get me wrong – I think good manners are important. I also think they boil down to treating each other with civility, which means respect and politeness. You know, like we treat others who are members of “our” political party. We all know that we should treat everyone like that, but with those thick-headed members of the “other” party, we are like the child who came home from his first day of kindergarten. When his mother asked what he learned today, he said, “I learned to say 'yes sir' and 'no sir' and 'yes mam' and 'no mam.' The mother said, “You did?” “Yeah,” was his answer. But after reading an article in this morning's newspaper, I am convinced that good manners can be, shall we say, overdone? The article, Follow these manners to a tea , lists some tips on the “correct” way to drink tea, at least in public. For example: “Rather than stirring tea, the correct way to incorporate milk is to place th
My alarm clock goes off every morning at eight, except for the few times when I have a breakfast date. Usually I wake up about an hour before that, or at least I partly wake up. It is important that I remain in a “not quite awake but not quite asleep” state, because I consider that time as the germination period for whatever seeds happen to have blown into my head.