Showing posts with label decisions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label decisions. Show all posts

Thursday, April 24, 2014

Nuke 'em Back To The Stone Age

     



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175 pounds

I always go back to Harry Truman: Should we drop an atomic bomb to save 100,000 lives? That's a hell of a decision to make. Did he make that decision by himself? No, he had advisers.
--Lee Iacocca

Decisions.

The older I get the more difficult I find it to make choices. Little things. Tiny, seemingly insignificant selections (Hunts, Heinz, or store brand catsup) from the grocery shelves become overwhelming options to be lengthily considered. One has a better flavor, another is 20 cents cheaper, the other is almost a dollar less.

Adding a dollop of catsup to a serving of fried fish makes it tastier, but it also causes me to want more than one. Maybe I would be better off not buying any. I like the taste of breaded crunchy-fried fish without enhancement well enough. And catsup adds unnecessary calories.

But I like it even better with a splash of catsup.

Decisions, decisions, decisions.


It is getting harder for me to walk my usual two miles each day. After the walk my legs are so tired they hurt, and the pain lasts for several hours. Especially if I do not lie down for a while after I get home, take a possible nap for an hour or so. And I need nothing from the grocery, which is at the halfway point of my walk. My cupboard, my refrigerator, and my freezer are full.

Maybe it is better to skip walking today... let my old muscles rebuild a bit.

Decisions, decisions, decisions.


Is it so mysterious that I feel John McCain, well into his seventies, is a poor choice to continue as a decision making U.S. Senator?

I think not.

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Did You Know . . .?

The first animal launched into orbit, Laika, was found as a stray wandering the streets of Moscow. Soviet scientists assumed that such animals had already learned to endure conditions of extreme cold and hunger.

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HISTORICAL EVENT

On this day in 1945 President Harry Truman learned the full details of the Manhattan Project, in which scientists were attempting to create the first atomic bomb. The information thrust upon Truman a momentous decision: whether or not to use the world's first weapon of mass destruction.

The war with Japan dragged on and it looked to many as if the Japanese would never surrender. On July 16, the team of scientists at Alamogordo, New Mexico, research station successfully test  exploded the first atomic bomb.

The first Japan-directed bomb was exploded over Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, and a second was dropped on Nagasaki on August 8. The Japanese quickly surrendered.

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WORD FOR TODAY

bombastic
adjective
1.  Ostentatiously lofty in style,
2.  High-sounding but with little meaning.
3.  (of speech or writing) high-flown; inflated; pretentious.

To be bombastic is to be full of hot air -- like a politician who makes grand promises and doesn't deliver.

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CELEBRITY BIRTHDAYS


(born April 24, 1942)
Barbara Streisand is an American singer-songwriter, author, actress, writer, film producer, and director. She is one of the few entertainers who have won an Oscar, Emmy, Grammy, and Tony Award. She is the best selling female artist of all time, with more than 71.5 million albums in the United States and 245 million records sold worldwide. 

After beginning a successful recording career in the 1960s, by the end of the decade, Streisand ventured into film starring in the critically acclaimed Funny Girl. Other notable films include The Owl and the Pussycat, The Way We Were and A Star Is Born. 



(born April 24, 1934),
Shirley MacLaine is an American film and theater actress, singer, dancer, activist and author. She has won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy twice, for her roles in The Apartment and Irma la Douce, and the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama twice for Terms of Endearment and Madame Sousatzka. 



(Apr 24, 1936 - May 18, 1990)
Jill Ireland was an English actress, best known for her many films with her second husband, Charles Bronson.



(born April 24, 1969)
Melinda Clarke is an American actress who has primarily worked in television. Clarke is known for playing Faith Taylor on the daytime drama Days of Our Lives, the manipulative and cunning Julie Cooper on The O.C., and the professional dominatrix Lady Heather on CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. From 2010 to 2013, she portrayed Amanda on the action-thriller television series Nikita. She was added as a recurring character on Vegas in 2013.


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I do not believe that civilization will be wiped out in a war fought with the atomic bomb. Perhaps two-thirds of the people of the earth will be killed.
--Albert Einstein

NASA TV

   

Thursday, May 24, 2012

What To Do . . .


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I am still considering a complete change of content for this blog. It's either that or abandon it altogether.

Also, I am thinking about buying a Kindle.

Decisions, decisions, decisions . . .

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WORD FOR TODAY

vernacular
[ver-NACK-yew-luhr]
Noun   
The language or dialect spoken by the ordinary people in a particular country or region.

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BORN ON THIS DATE IN HISTORY


Gary Burghoff 
 Born May 24, 1943

Gary Richard Burghoff is an American actor, known for playing the character Corporal Walter Eugene "Radar" O'Reilly in the M*A*S*H movie and TV series.


ALSO


Priscilla Presley
Born May 24, 1945

Priscilla Presley is an American actress and businesswoman. She is the ex-wife of singer Elvis Presley, and the mother of singer-songwriter Lisa Marie Presley.

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All our final decisions are made in a state of mind that is not going to last.
--Marcel Proust

Sunday, November 13, 2011

Twists And Turns Of The Mind



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In an interesting little piece, George Will wrote:

The Stolen Valor Act of 2005, a compound of political pandering and moral exhibitionism, was whooped through the Senate, aka the "world's greatest deliberative body," by unanimous consent; the House, joining the stampede, passed it by a voice vote.

The Stolen Valor Act allows fines and imprisonment for anyone who falsely claims to have been awarded any military decoration or medal authorized by Congress, with the severest sentences for claiming the highest honors.

Read more: Our problematic speech - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

George Will's articles (and others) always provoke me to introspection, for some reason, often resulting in stirring up intense anger and resentment within my innermost secret thoughts--angers and resentments completely unrelated to the original article. And often it features as the villain: The government. The government. The government.

What it is with me, I suppose, is this festering rage against all authority figures I've always felt, beginning in my subteen years and building throughout my lifetime. Just what is it, I've always wondered, that gives another person (or group of persons) the right to tell me what I can or cannot do?

This question has plagued me all my life and has been the source of many, many misguided, stupid, and just plain wrong decisions I have made. No, I'm not blaming the government for my mistakes in life...

...or am I?

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The Sunday morning TV news shows, sadly, were again profoundly disappointing to me. the Penn State scandal, the Republican debates and the candidate gaffes, and the so obvious schadenfreude of the commentators and round table participants...

And it rained quite a bit this morning, too... which puts a damper on my daily walk schedule.

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We understand nothing of the works of God unless we take it as a principle that He wishes to blind some and to enlighten others.
--Blaise Pascal