Thoughts Before The Alarm Sounds

I have been elected to the post of treasurer of the Residents’ Council at Luther Acres. It will be my job to keep track of the receipts and disbursements of the council’s funds. Each month I will also be expected to report to the council on the financial activities for the prior period. I have already received some feedback on the format of the monthly report; the gist of it is that it is too complicated. The residents say they are old people, inexperienced in financial terminology, and as a result I need to keep it simple. What complicates matters is that the Executive Committee of the Council needs to see where they are in relation to the budget which is set up at the beginning of the year. And it seems to be the budget that is confusing the main council. I have some ideas about what to do, and I shall try them out, first at the Executive Committee meeting, and if approved there, at the general council meeting. As so many things seem to do lately, this situation appears, at l...

In 2007, Jamie Leigh Jones testified at a Congressional hearing that she had been gang-raped in 2005 by as many as seven co-workers while working in Iraq for KBR, a subsidiary of Halliburton. After an Army doctor examined her and gave forensic material to her employer, she was placed under guard in a shipping container, where she remained without food or drink for 24 hours. Finally a friendly guard gave her a cell phone which she used to call her father. She was released only after her father asked the US embassy to intervene. When Jones tried to take legal action, Halliburton/KBR used a clause in her contract, which required disputes to be settled by arbitration, to block such action. In 2007, Jones filed a joint civil suit against Halliburton/KBR and the only assailant she could identify. According to the legal papers, Jones was given a knockout drug while drinking with KBR firefighters. “When she awoke the next morning still affected by the drug, she found her body naked and...

One of the people we met on our recent trip was Sandy Balla, a history major and Hudson River buff. Sandy, who lives in the area, was hired by the cruise line to give us information about the sights we were seeing, and she is very good at the job. Whether it was West Point, Catskill or any other location along the route from NYC to Troy , Sandy was up to date with her knowledge. She knew not only the history of the locations we visited; she also told us about the current local economy, as well as prior to the settlement by the Dutch and English;  the relations of the current and ancient populations with each other, and the names and works of local painters and artisans who did so much to popularize the region. She also told us stories and legends, e.g. Rip Van Winkle , during times when some of us had idle time aboard ship. Her knowledge and enthusiasm, and the professionalism with which she imparted it, did much to make the trip more meaningful and pleasant. She also told...

In his song “As Time Goes By,” Louis Armstrong sings “A kiss is still a kiss, a sigh is just a sigh…” Some folks can’t resist imputing hidden special meanings to events which just stand on their own. Here are a few examples: Sometimes a grassy knoll is not a hiding place for a second gunman – it’s just a grassy knoll. Sometimes the holocaust is not a story cooked up by the Jews as an excuse to form the nation of Israel – it’s just a horrible historical fact. Sometimes the debris from an experimental high-altitude surveillance balloon is not a crashed UFO – it’s just the debris from an experimental high-altitude surveillance balloon. Sometimes an automobile crash caused by a driver under the influence of drugs is not the assassination of a princess orchestrated by the Royal Family – it’s just a crash caused by a driver under the influence of drugs. Sometimes a political attack on a philandering president is not a “vast right wing conspiracy” – it’s just a normal opposition ta...

I have been playing bridge since 2005. I mentioned to my mother-in-law that I would like to learn the game, and shortly thereafter I was invited to substitute in the Wednesday night game at Luther Acres, the retirement village in which she lived. As it happened, she was the organizer for the Wednesday night group. I bought “Bridge For Dummies” and proceeded to read it. After four years I am still reading it. I suppose I didn’t stumble too badly, although I felt really stupid by the time that first evening was over. All I could do was hold the cards and follow suit. I also was the dummy in more ways than one. Even though my mother-in-law has been gone for three years, I have been invited to “substitute” almost every week since then. Bridge is a very humbling game. Whenever I think I am beginning to get the hang of it, I run up against reality. Experts tell me one never stops learning about the game, and I believe them. I read the daily bridge column in the newspaper, and about half t...