February 5, 2012

Strange weather.. 67 degrees one day, 2 inches of snow the next..  I had a birthday a couple of days ago and I remembered when I lived in Massachusetts..  I always was able to go skating on a local pond on my February birthday.  I've heard that it never gets cold enough to skate there anymore.  Sad.

Our Winter weather here in Maryland is getting a bit warmer now.  In recent years, Winter here has resembled Winter weather in Spartanburg, South Carolina in the 1980's.. requiring only light jackets, and sometimes none. However, it is never warm enough for the shorts and T-shirts that I see lots of teen-aged WalMart customers wearing in January. 

Speaking of WalMart.. I'm not sure if I posted it or not.. one day, at a WalMart near Ocean City, Maryland, Elaine was the only customer who did not sport a tatoo of some kind.. even grammar school kids. However, I can't talk.. I also have a tatoo. (I'll tell you the story someday about how and why I got it, and what it has meant for me over the years.)  But it is a little disconcerting to see an eight-year old with a dragon tatoo on an arm.

Poetry Time

Becky Herman sent out two stanzas of a poem that relates to her email experience. It was written by Mark Eckman and Jerold Zar, and the title of the piece is "Candidate for a Pullet Surprise."

I have a spelling checker
It came with my PC
It plane lee marks for my review
Mistakes I cannot sea.

I ran this poem threw it
I'm sure your pleased to no
Its letter perfect in its weigh
My checker told me sew.

Churches..pay up!

According to Lance Pierson of London, England: "Despite its venerability, the King James Version (of the Bible) remains in copyright, which is renewed on the accession of each monarch.  The Globe Theater found it had a substantial royalty bill to pay this April when its actors recited the whole text..."

Mr. Pierson has a touring acting company that has been exempted from paying royalties by the Crown copyright agents (Cambridge University Press) because they only use 90 minutes worth of the text. 


Party-givers..pay up!

Have you ever wondered why servers at restaurants sing their own versions of Happy Birthday songs?  Yes.. that song is copyrighted and if you sing the song, you are required to pay royalties, no matter where you sing it.

AARP Members..pay up!

At the local AARP Chapter meetings, we usually sing a patriotic song and also "Happy Birthday" and "Happy Anniversary."  We are law-breakers, because we are not paying royalties!

Once, when I was Chapter President, we received a letter from some copyright agent or other (I wish that I had kept the letter).. offering us a "cut-rate" for a number of years, to cover all of our versions of the "Happy Birthday" tune sung or played at our monthly meetings.

Scofflaws..pay up!

Maryland requires all organizations to file an obscure form each year.  Very few organizations have ever heard of the form.. until last year.  Some State worker with nothing much to do, collected the names of all of the Maryland organizations that had not filed the form for a while.  Under normal circumstances, the State would send out reminder notices, and no penalties would apply, unless the organization neglected to submit the form after being noticed..

However, a lawyer with nothing much to do, heard about this and offered to do it for the State and  
relieve the State of the expense of sending the reminders.  He was granted permission and sent out the notices and bills to the "miscreants" for $90 to cover his expenses. The way the notice was worded meant that organizations would have to suffer a State penalty if they did not comply.  To avoid any trouble, one of the organizations I am connected to decided to pay the $90.  I wonder how many others did, and what happened to those organizations that did not contribute to this scam.

(This is my "take" on the situation.  I may have it wrong.  If you know that situation, let me know, so I can make corrections.)

"Hi! I'm dead, but I hope you are having a nice Day!"

I hear that there is now an "app" that allows you to record a message to be posted on Facebook on the day that you die.  Wow! Scary!

This kind of reminds me of the time I went to a wake for a secretary who had worked at the Social Security Administration.  While we were sitting around her body at the funeral parlor, she walked in the door!..  We were really confused until we found out that the deceased had an identical twin.  Nobody at work knew that.. if only her sister had not decided to wear the identical suit as her sister.....

"What is your question, Miss?"

I heard on the radio that when Texas Governor Perry made a campaign stop at the Squat and Gobble Cafe in South Carolina, he called upon a maniken that he thought was a potential voter.

Where did it go?

I also heard on the radio that Samoa completely lost December 30, 2011, when the International Date Line was shifted!

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Enough foolishness!  Auf wiedersehen!
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October 22, 2011

Our local newspaper, The Carroll County Times, has quite a bit of provocative content today, in my opinion.  Here are my comments on a few of them, and also some other stuff that comes to my mind, such as it is..

1.  Uniform rights

A teen-ager was told that she could not wear a religious scarf while marching in a parade with her fellow ROTCers.  A national Muslim civil rights group has filed suit. 

Although I have no love for the ROTC, and believe that they should not be allowed to operate in our public schools, in this case, I think that the ROTC officers were right.  What kind of military organization would it be if everybody wore a differently styled uniform?  And what about separation of Church and State?

This reminds me of a decision I made when I was a Claims Authorizer for the Social Security Administration.  A beneficiary wrote a letter asking that a religious abreviation be appended to his last name, so that it would appear on his monthly check.  I thought about it, and figured "what harm could that do?"   I made the change.

Letters started to come in from hundreds of other members of his religious sect, and changes were also made  for them because of my precedent-setting decision.  

However, shortly thereafter, hundreds of letters started coming in from members of a rival religious group which had found out about the changes. They wanted similar changes made to reflect their beliefs.  Oh Oh!  I had opened the proverbial "can of worms". Now I was in big trouble... so, a decision was made that all of the name changes already made had to be undone, and no changes of that type be allowed in the future.  Such name change problems should not occur now that (supposedly) all Social Security benefits are deposited electronically to bank accounts.

I wonder what happens to the checks for people who cannot get bank accounts.  Are they deposited in the bank accounts of Representative Payees?


2.  Billionaires' Lament

I read where the rising cost of health care is causing trouble for Walmart and they are about to cut health benefits for some future employees and raise premium costs for others.  The corporation employees a million and a half workers, so their employee costs must be astronomical.. but so are their profits, I've been told.  I've also been told that their dividend rate is very low and profits are instead plowed back into the company. 

Just try to get a parking place at the Westminster, Maryland store.  The lot is always full.  In contrast, the parking  lot at the K-Mart in nearby Eldersburg, Maryland is almost empty, almost all of the time.  Walmart has got to be making lots of money.  Therefore, it seems to me that Walmart can well afford to "eat" the rise in the price of health care for their employees and should stop their complaining.

To be fair, I did visit the local Walmart recently and some charitable information was posted near the rest rooms, where all should be able to read it.   It said that in 2010:

Walmart donated $19,299,556.00 within the State of Maryland.
Walmart donated $1,000.00 to each of these Carroll County entities:
     Carroll County Public Library
     Mission of Mercy
     Literary Council
Walmart donated $467,000,000.00 in cash or in kind within the USA.
Walmart donated 99,000,000  meals within the USA.
Walmart employees contributed 1,500,000 volunteer hours within the USA.

3.  Listen up!

Reverend Lou Piel has a solution for some of the ugly devisiveness that is presently plaguing our country.  In his Column this week he makes a very powerful point:  "... Knowing what I believe but being open to the thoughts of others creates a more healthy society.  Good dialogue tends to break down the walls that we ourselves have created."

4.  At last.. a raise!

It has just been announced that there will be an increase in Social Security benefits in January.  A cost of living 3.6% increase is supposed to take place then.  Of course, this also means that rents for the elderly will also rise.  Where is President Nixon when we need him?  Old Tricky Dick did a lot of bad things, but he also put a cap on prices for a while, to let people take a breath of fresh air and keep a few bucks for themselves.

5.  Label Names

Since I have always loved junk mail, I have always gotten lots of it.  For the past few years, I have tried to keep it confined by renting a post office box, but it still shows up at my home each day.  Have you ever looked at your name on these mailings?  Sometimes they get quite creative, at least for me.

For instance, at some long-ago point of time, I replied to a survey.  Whoever ran the survey sent me a "thank you", addressed to Josurv Vaughan.  The surveyer sold my name to mailers and now every few days I get junk mail with that name.

Yesterday, I got a piece of mail from the Learning Company.  It was addressed to Joseph Called Vaughan.  Since I don't have a middle name, I appreciate their gift to me.  (I did call their 800 # once.)

(I gave a speech once at a Toastmasters Club meeting in which I told everyone about my love of junk mail.  At the next meeting, I was presented with a massive pile of junk mail the other members had saved up for me. )

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My hour is up.  See ya!