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4月17日

Red Marbles

RED MARBLES

I was at the corner grocery store buying some early potatoes.

I noticed a small boy, delicate of bone and feature, ragged but clean, hungrily apprizing a basket of freshly picked green peas.

I paid for my potatoes, but was also drawn to the display of fresh green peas.

I am a pushover for creamed peas and new potatoes.  Pondering the peas, I couldn't help overhearing the conversation between Mr. Miller (the store owner) and the ragged boy next to me.

'Hello Barry, how are you today?'

'H'lo, Mr. Miller. Fine, thank ya. Jus' admirin' them peas.  They sure look good.'

'They are good, Barry. How's your Ma?'

'Fine. Gittin' stronger alla' time.'

'Good. Anything I can help you with?'

'No, Sir. Jus' admirin' them peas.'

'Would you like take some home?' asked Mr. Miller.

'No, Sir. Got nuthin' to pay for 'em with.'

'Well, what have you to trade me for some of those peas?'

'All I got's my prize marble here.'

'Is that right? Let me see it' said Miller.

'Here 'tis. She's a dandy.'

'I can see that. Hmmmmm, only thing is this one is blue and I sort of go for red. Do you have a red one like this at home?' the store owner asked.

'Not zackley but almost.'

'Tell you what. Take this sack of peas home with you and next trip this way let me look at that red marble', Mr. Miller told the boy.

'Sure will. Thanks Mr. Miller.'

Mrs. Miller, who had been standing nearby, came over to help me.

With a smile said, 'There are two other boys like him in our community, all three are in very poor circumstances.  Jim just loves to bargain with them for peas, apples, tomatoes, or whatever.

When they come back with their red marbles, and they always do, he decides he doesn't like red after all and he sends them home with a bag of produce for a green marble or an orange one, when they come on their next trip to the store.'

I left the store smiling to myself, impressed with this man.

A short time later I moved to Colorado , but I never forgot the story of this man, the boys, and their bartering for marbles.

Several years went by, each more rapid than the previous one.

Just recently I had occasion to visit some old friends in that Idaho community and while I was there learned that Mr. Miller had died..

They were having his visitation that evening and knowing my friends wanted to go, I agreed to accompany them.

Upon arrival at the mortuary we fell into line to meet the relatives of the deceased and to offer whatever words of comfort we could.

Ahead of us in line were three young men.

One was in an army uniform and the other two wore nice haircuts, dark suits and white shirts...all very professional looking.

They approached Mrs. Miller, standing composed and smiling by her husband's casket.

Each of the young men hugged her, kissed her on the cheek, spoke briefly with her and moved on to the casket.

Her misty light blue eyes followed them as, one by one, each young man stopped briefly and placed his own warm hand over the cold pale hand in the casket.

Each left the mortuary awkwardly, wiping his eyes.

Our turn came to meet Mrs. Miller.  I told her who I was and reminded her of the story from those many years ago and what she had told me about her husband's bartering for marbles.

With her eyes glistening, she took my hand and led me to the casket.

'Those three young men who just left were the boys I told you about.  They just told me how they appreciated the things Jim 'traded' them.

Now, at last, when Jim could not change his mind about color or size....they came to pay their debt.'

'We've never had a great deal of the wealth of this world,' she confided, 'but right now, Jim would consider himself the richest man in Idaho '.

With loving gentleness she lifted the lifeless fingers of her deceased husband. Resting underneath were three exquisitely shined red marbles.

The Moral : We will not be remembered by our words, but by our kind deeds.  Life is not measured by the breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath.

Today I wish you a day of ordinary miracles ~ A fresh pot of coffee you didn't make yourself.

An unexpected phone call from an old friend.

Green stoplights on your way to work.

The fastest line at the grocery store.

A good sing-along song on the radio.

Your keys found right where you left them.

Send this to the people you'll never forget.

I just Did...

If you don't send it to anyone, it means you are in way too much of a hurry to even notice the ordinary miracles when they occur.

It's not what you gather, but what you scatter that tells what kind of life you have lived!
4月16日

Free speech must be free for everyone

 http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/wichman.asp
Professor Wichman E-mail
Claim:   A Michigan professor sent an e-mail telling Muslim students to leave the country.

Status:   True.

The story begins at Michigan State University

 with a mechanical engineering professor named

 Indrek Wichman.

 Wichman sent an e-mail to the Muslim Student's Association.  

The e-mail was in response to the students' protest

of the Danish cartoons

that portrayed the Prophet Muhammad as a terrorist.

 The group had complained the cartoons were

'hate speech'

 Enter Professor Wichman.

In his e-mail, he said the following:

 Dear Moslem Association,

 As a professor of Mechanical Engineering here at MSU

 I intend to protest your protest.

I am offended not by cartoons,

but by more mundane things like beheadings of civilians,

 cowardly attacks on public buildings, suicide murders,

 murders of Catholic priests

(the latest in Turkey ),

burnings of Christian churches,

the continued persecution of Coptic Christians in Egypt ,

the imposition of Sharia law on non-Muslims,

the rapes of Scandinavian girls and women

 (called 'whores' in your culture),

the murder of film directors in Holland,

and the rioting and looting in Paris France.

This is what offends me,

a soft-spoken person and academic,

and many, many of my colleagues.

I counsel you dissatisfied, aggressive, brutal,

and uncivilized slave-trading Moslems

 to be very aware of this as you proceed

with your infantile 'protests.'


 

If you do not like the values of the West

- see the 1st Amendment -

 you are free to leave.


 

I hope for God's sake

that most of you choose that option.

 Please return to your ancestral homelands

and build them up yourselves instead of troubling Americans.

Cordially,

I. S. Wichman

 Professor of Mechanical Engineering


 

As you can imagine,

 the Muslim group at the university didn't like this too well.

 They're demanding that Wichman be reprimanded

and the university impose mandatory diversity training for faculty

and mandate a seminar on hate and discrimination for all freshmen.


 

Now the local chapter of CAIR has jumped into the fray.

CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations,

apparently doesn't believe that the good professor

had the right to express his opinion.


 

For its part,

 the university is standing its ground

in support of Professor Wichman,

saying the e-mail was private,

and they don't intend to publicly condemn his remarks.

============================================================

 Send this to your friends, and ask them to do the same.

Tell them to keep passing it around until the whole country gets it.

 We are in a war.

This political correctness crap is getting old and killing us.

If you agree with this,

 please send it to all your friends.

4月15日

Life's journey and arrival

"Life is not a journey to the grave with the expectation of arriving safely in a
pretty and well preserved body;  but rather to 'skid in' broadside,
thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming, 'Wow! What a
Ride!'"
4月11日

Talking about Documents seized at polygamist ranch - Crime & courts- msnbc.com

  I have really mixed feelings on this whole thing.  FIRST, let me say I am not for breaking the law, nor am I for children (or for that matter any child) being taken advantage of.  I find it strange that while we on the one hand protest the olympic torch running thru San Fransisco and say we support Tibet's right to worship his holiness the Dali Lama (religious freedom) yet we will not allow religious freedoms here in America if a cult gets to big and we don't know what's going on.  Is the only religion that is palitable to us American's the one we individually participate in?  Our forefathers saw much further than that hundreds of years ago.  In LA you can call 911 and sometimes not even get thru!  You can have a homeless guy peeing on your sidewalk with a knife on his side and call the police and they wont come, but if an anonymous girl (who still has not been found or come forward) who states she is underage and married calls a crises hotline, that all of a sudden the US and the state of Texas can raid private religious property and confiscate anything and everything they want and seperate mothers from their children.  It is strange and I am glad it did not turn out like the last time they did it there in Texas, killing over 70 people in Waco.  Folks, our government seems to be taking more and more liberty, does anyone notice this but me?

Quote

Documents seized at polygamist ranch - Crime & courts- msnbc.com
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4月9日

One people one world

Are we not one people and one world?  The species of humankind?  Why is it we want to dominate, rule and control each other on a societal basis?  We can no longer be protectionists, for surely it is a global economy.  I understand America wanting to continue to be number one, numero uno, but is it sustainable given that we are not the country with the most people?  Is creativity limited to being American or can you be Chinese and be creative or Indian?  I am certainly not against my home country, but open to exploring what the world can accomplish when all work together to make things better.  We came from England to be free, but the scars of being under a monarchy remained and we killed Indians at random and did worse that anything we read about in today's papers?  We still do it but I guess now we add ina pinch of war dignity in that we say we treat prisoners right.  War is about killing human beings is it not?  One people, one world... how do we work towards peace when the bully who carries the biggest stick makes the rules.  Dignified people using kind and empathetic techniques will prevail if we all work together.  Words get things done, so speak up my brothers and sisters, do not sit by idlely please.