A RECENT NEWS CHICKEN STORY
I, like so many others, keep trying to figure out what to do to survive and deal with all the problems confronting us in today’s economy. The increasing intrusion and cost of political government from Federal, to State, to County, To City, all taking a bite here and a slice there, out of our lives and property, keeps us eternally vigilant to survive. Aside from all this legal plunder, there are many common thieves and criminals lurking around the corner.
That’s mine!! A small child yells, when another grabs a toy out of its hands.
Why is so much of the money I have earned taken out of my weekly paycheck, the worker asks, when he opens his weekly paycheck, and seeing his salary drop from $600 to $325, after all the deductions. Taxes, taxes, where does it go?
Last week a lady knocked on my door looking for a job house cleaning. I invited her in and interviewed her. She appeared in excellent health, but said she drew a disability check plus food stamps from the government. Lives with her daughter, a single parent with one child, and they too receive government doles and food stamp vouchers.
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.
Every day we hear a different word headlining the news. Since President Bill Clinton made news headlines with the word “is” by saying, “depends upon the meaning of is”, simple everyday words have become headlines with the meaning lines blurred.
For example, “seamless” is the latest ordinary word tossed around by the U.S. President, U.S. Secretary of Treasury, top newscasters, pundits, bloggers and children.
If you go to the dictionary to check out ordinary everyday words, you might be surprised. The word “seam” can have two opposing meanings. It can mean to separate or to unite. The formal definitions of “seam” are, “A visible line of juncture between two parts. A wrinkle, a scar, a thin stratum in a rock. To crack open; to unite. To mark with a cut or a furrow. To stitch together.” Accordingly, if these are definitions of the word “seam”, then “seamless” means no seam. No visible line of demarcation, no crack, no cut, no furrow, no scar, no wrinkle, no boundary.
The word “seam” has been used by the top power brokers in relation to the economy and transference of power and money. The word is coupled with transition. “Seamless transition” is the latest buzz phrase. After Congress passed the $700 billion bill to hand over, in one large bag of money to Mr. Paulson with no oversight, a la carte, he referred to it as a “seamless transition.”
Copyright 2008-2012, Anne Cleveland. Feel free to quote me or use snippets of my text with attribution – but please refrain from reusing entire posts without first procuring written permission.
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