I enjoyed another great Christmas. Again we all gathered at my son’s house, which was so beautifully decorated. Their normal dining room looked like a picture from House Beautiful.
My daughter-in-law, Liz, had several relatives visiting from out of state. Relatives originally from New York whom I had not seen in several years, but delightful and interesting company. My Southern children were there, plus visiting neighbors who came after the Christmas feast for dessert and coffee.
The Christmas dinner was a mixture of Southern and Northern dishes, and believe me, we all eat different kinds of cookery. We had the southern creamed corn, mashed potatoes and white cream gravy.
This is a preview of
Another Christmas Came and Went . . . Here’s My Story (Issue 140)
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This is a true story, which happened recently.
A young man finished high school and went to work for a company in the electronics business. He had a natural adept ability for the electronics field. A dedicated employee who worked long and hard, he applied his talents and in a few years rose up in the ranks of the company to a managerial position.
In the course of events, he purchased his own home, a house he restored and furnished with all the latest appliances and electronic gadgetry. Then he added a fish tank to his decor. Not one of those small fish bowls with a couple of gold fish, but a larger tank, operated by electricity to keep the water oxygenated for the fish.
Who doesn’t enjoy watching fish live, eat and play, swimming around all day in a fish tank? The owner furnishes all their needs—food, air and comfort—and all they do is swim, eat and play.
Here in Georgia is the world’s largest fish aquarium, a facility that houses thousands of all kinds of fish from the largest whale to the smallest fish. An attraction draws millions from all over the world to come to Atlanta to visit this huge aquarium.
There is something about the life of a fish that is fascinating to us. Whether in the ocean or in captivity, they do not have to work for survival. Everyday they swim, play, eat and reproduce without any worries about their wants or needs.
Much about the life of human beings depends upon fish life, especially for food, but fish do not depend upon man unless taken out of their natural habitat, for whatever reason, but mostly for pleasure. Fish are colorful, alive and entertaining to watch.
The young man I mention, who bought a house and installed a fish tank, went to work as usual one day and returned to find the inside of his home totally destroyed and blackened with smoke. The structure of his home was still standing. The inside and furnishings had not burned down, but it was declared a total loss from a smoldering of black smoke that had slowly penetrated everything that day.
At first glance, this seemed a mystery. How could the inside of a house and all the furnishings and personal belongings be destroyed by smoke when there were no visible flames? Apparently, there was an electrical shortage, which created a fire. However, as the fire heated the fish tank, the tank burst, and the water from the tank put out the flames and left the smoldering debris. Since no one was home, this condition of smoldering continued all day until the owner upon his return home from work that evening discovered it.
The devastation from the smoldering was so extensive, nothing in the home was salvageable and the inside and all the contents were declared a total loss. The reality of this amazing story fascinated me. A rather tragic mishap no one could imagine because of owning a fish tank. In our wildest imagination, we cannot fathom the course of events that sometimes occur from the most innocent actions and decisions in our lives.
Fortunately, this story had a good ending because of the personal responsibility of a good insurance plan that restored the inside of the structure and covered the replacement of the personal property damage.
It’s a story I found so interesting, I began thinking about the analogy of the actuality to the current happenings and events in this country.
This is a preview of
A True Fish Tale: The Smoldering Tanking of a Fish Tank (Issue 139)
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I just read an article about BB&T bank making a considerable contribution to WCU College of Business. Included in the contribution was a stipulation that Ayn Rand‘s philosophy of objectivism be taught to explore the “moral and ethical foundation of capitalism.”
The article also stated, “Plus another $500,000 in matching funds it hopes to obtain from the State Legislature.”
Capitalism is an economic system in which means of production and distribution are mostly privately owned and operated for private profit.
In its purest form, it’s a system where individuals invest their privately owned assets into a venture of producing and distributing a particular thing for profit. It’s a risk-taking proposition. There are no guarantees a profit will be realized; there is always the possibility of a loss of the privately invested capital. Conversely, if the venture is a success and enjoys a profit, the individual investors reap the resulting power of their risk-taking venture.
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Ayn Rand, Freedom, Capitalism, Libertarian Party, Autocratic (Issue 138)
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The first eight years of the first decade of the twenty-first century is about to come to an end. What a tumultuous year this has been. Never in my eight decades of living on this earth can I recall so much happening in any one twelve-month period. So much has changed and yet so much remains the same.
For me personally, it was a year of change. I began writing on my own blog site this year. When I started, I did not know what a “blog” was. But when my son suggested he would create this website for me to write about anything I wanted to, I jumped at the chance to express my ideas on a variety of subjects. And I must say, it has been a great cathartic experience. I’ve written about my life’s journey, politics, Universal Principles, grandparenting, told stories about North Georgia where I live, and a variety of subjects related to current events, as I write to express not to impress.
As the year ends, there’s much to be grateful for, and much to be concerned about. So many have lost their homes, millions are out of jobs, and despite the rising cost of food, we still have plenty to eat. There seems to be no scarcity of food in the grocery stores. And despite the grumbling about the economy, the malls seem to be crowded with shoppers for the holiday season.
This is a preview of
As this Year Ends, What’s Going to Happen Next Year? (Issue 137)
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